KCR’s plans to tackle a rising BJP in Telangana

Attack, as they say, is the best form of defence. More so against a BJP that is emerging as a formidable force that can simply not be wished away.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (File photo| EPS)

The rude jolt the TRS received in the recent Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections seems to have brought Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao back to the drawing board to plan new strategies to stop the onward march of the BJP.

One of the prongs of his graduated counterattack on the ruling NDA at the Centre led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to throw his weight behind the agitating Punjab farmers, who are demanding the repeal of three contentious new farm sector laws that were rushed through at the speed of light—by parliamentary standards.

Attack, as they say, is the best form of defence. More so against a BJP that is emerging as a formidable force that can simply not be wished away. Time was when KCR had the comfort of a non-existent opposition, as he successfully inflicted a death by thousand cuts on the state unit of the Congress. That’s history. By and by, the BJP is occupying the space vacated by the grand old party.

A couple of days before the GHMC polls, KCR gave a veiled warning to the BJP while addressing a public meeting that he would have to play Delhi politics if they continued to indulge in galli (local) politics, implying forging an anti-BJP front at the national level.

In jest, he also wondered why so many BJP heavyweights were landing in Hyderabad to take on a CM who was essentially skinny. The underlying message of course was that he is stronger than all the BJP leaders put together.

KCR’s fear of reverses in the GHMC polls came true when the BJP delivered an iron-fisted punch on the TRS and is now getting ready to expand its sphere of influence in the next Assembly elections in 2023.

The TRS’ immediate goal is to win the elections to two graduate seats in the Legislative Council, polls to Warangal and Khammam municipal corporations, and the by-election for the Nagarjuna Sagar Assembly seat. To paint the BJP as the primary adversary, KCR has already distanced his party from it, keen as he is on shedding the earlier image of going soft on the Centre. The saffron party in Telangana is no longer a toy he can play with.