With Bharat Rashtra Samithi, KCR sets his sights on national ambitions

Published : Oct 20, 2022 10:35 IST The decision of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao to expand his Telangana Rashtra Samithi into a national-level political party and renaming it Bharat Rashtra Samithi, is not an overnight one, at least for those who have followed his moves for more than a year now. The TRS’ loss to the BJP in the Huzurabad Assembly by-election in November 2021 was perhaps the point when Rao, decided to take the bull by its horns despite the fact that his was only a regional party, and it would be a long and arduous political journey to have a presence at the national level let alone make an impact. Both Kumaraswamy and Thirumavalavan welcomed Rao’s decision to launch the BRS and go national, and said that there was a need for such voices to take on the BJP. Sources in the BRS said that the support of farmers and other sections to the Telangana government’s welfare schemes in the border areas in Maharashtra and Karnataka may also have emboldened Rao to test the waters outside Telangana. Rao stated in the Assembly during the last monsoon session that several Maharashtra farmers in villages bordering Telangana had bought small plots of land on the Telangana side, sunk borewells or dug open wells to take the benefit of 24×7 free power supply for agricultural pump sets, and installed pipes for a length of a few hundred metres to irrigate land on the Maharashtra side.