Decoding KCR is a little difficult. The political strategies that he comes up with are baffling. For instance, the decision to support NDA in the Rajya Sabha for amendments it proposed to the RTI Act. TRS is one of the several parties which had said they were opposed to the amendments. TRS leader K Keshava Rao was one of the signatories to the motion seeking that the amendments be referred to a select committee for further vetting. He had notes as long as the length of his arm to nail the BJP for trying to blast a huge hole in the RTI Act.
But the end-game was different. Keshava Rao had said his party was supporting the amendments to the RTI Act as he found out later that there was nothing wrong with them after a discussion with Union Minister Jitendra Singh. Not just him. Biju Janata Dal, which had opposed the amendments earlier, came out in their support while the YSRC pledged unqualified support to the bill. The three parties together had 16 members, enough for the BJP to have its way.
What has come as a surprise was the sudden volte-face of the TRS on its stand. The grapevine has it that it was BJP chief and Union Minister for Home Amit Shah who wove a web of magic in getting the support of majority members of the Upper House. For KCR to change his mind on the issue, Amit Shah reportedly spoke to him and sought his support. After his call, KCR is understood to have asked his members not to oppose the bill.
Apart from this, Rajya Sabha member J Santosh Kumar, who happens to be close to KCR, was in Hyderabad when the debate in Rajya Sabha was on. After Amit Shah’s phone call to KCR, Santosh Kumar reportedly rushed to Delhi in a special flight to vote in favour of the amendment. There has been speculation in political circles that the BJP was making KCR a little suffocated and the fact that Governor ESL Narasimhan seeking amendment to the new Municipal Act was a case in point.
The BJP, it is learnt, was trying to position itself for a frontal attack on KCR. It probably wanted him to know that it cannot take everything for granted. Lending credence to this argument, the Governor had asked the government to prune certain provisions in the Municipal Act like the one that helps that State arrogate to itself the powers of the State Election Commission in scheduling elections to the civic bodies.
The State acquiesced to the Governor’s recommendations without any fuss though it could refer the Governor’s proposal back to him without amending the Act. In the face of the BJP opening up battlefronts at a several places simultaneously, the BJP critics, particularly the Congress leaders, say that KCR, realising the danger of being in bad books of Modi, as the latter is walking tall on the national firmament, had acted in a way that had pleased the BJP.
The relations between KCR and the BJP hit a new low at the time of the recent Assembly and Lok Sabha elections when the chieftain of the TRS called the BJP names and even went to the extent of hurting the Hindu sentiments which had a severe backlash from the BJP helping it consolidated the Hindus in its favour.
If KCR nudges closer to Amit Shah and Modi, it is going to be bad news for the BJP which is raring to come to power in the State. In the run-up to the 2018 Assembly elections, they did not know for sure if they were supporting KCR or opposing him which had led the party’s attempts in taking him head-on, very feeble. As days go by, if KCR keeps moving closer and the BJP reciprocates, maybe the saffron party could kiss goodbye to its dream of coming to power in the State.