Is TRS overplaying its hand by ditching Cong in Telangana?

While delivering a blow by rejecting the idea of having any kind of electoral tie-up with the Congress, Telangana Rashtra Samithi supremo K Chandrasekhara Rao (KCR) has slammed the door on the face of the Grand Old Party with finality. This has surely sent jitters among the rank and file of the Congress in the Telangana region from which it has been expecting big gains. KCR dubbed Congress general secretary and in-charge of Andhra Pradesh affairs Digvijaya Singh and Union Minister Jairam Ramesh as villains de peace in the cobbling up of an alliance or an adjustment between the Congress and the TRS. [caption id=“attachment_1436651” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The TRS is confident that it will be rewarded by the people of Telangana for the creation of the separate state: PTI[/caption] KCR’s anger was triggered by an ‘open invite’ extended by Digvijaya Singh to TRS leaders to join the Congress at a meet-the-press programme at Hyderabad press club on Friday. He clearly did not want to take it lying down. “Let us see from tomorrow whether the TRS leaders would cross over to the Congress or will it be the other way round,” KCR said, packing several punches against the Congress during a loquacious speech at Telangana Bhavan while inducting a Congress leader into the party on Saturday. He minced no words in asserting that the TRS was not running in the elections at the mercy of the Congress. Beginning with the Centre’s deliberate avoidance of granting national project status to the massive Pranahitha-Chevella multipurpose project, he listed out how the newly appointed Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president Ponnala Lakshmaiah kowtowed to the political interests of Seemandhra leaders when he was the Major Irrigation Minister in the YS Rajasekhara Reddy regime. KCR’s master stroke emerges out of confidence that the people of the region will endow him with the credit of achieving separate statehood for Telangana. Soon after the passage of the Andhra Pradesh Reoragnisation Bill, 2013, by both Houses of Parliament, Congress leaders began nudging him to merge his party with the grand old party, as “vowed by KCR himself.” Though embarrassed, KCR kept his options open. While he baulked at the merger demand, he, however, left the door ajar. As KCR himself said, the Congress could not act as if it were condescending to the TRS and the party high command did not open any dialogue with him on the merger when he was in Delhi for more than a month. The trading of charges and war of words between the TRS and the Congress leaders caused relations between the parties to nosedive to a new low. KCR’s son and MLA, KT Rama Rao indicated that the TRS was averse to either a merger or an adjustment with the Congress on the very day that KCR’s welcome rally turned out to be a super hit. Egging TRS leaders against him and inducing them into the Congress was certainly seen as a snub by KCR. It seems that the Congress leaders did not understand the importance of interdependence of both parties in the region, until KCR slammed the door on Saturday. In saying that two ministers in the erstwhile Kiran Kumar Reddy Government from the Telangana region were in touch with him seeking admission into the TRS, he sent across a message to the Telangana Congress unit that the magnetic field of the TRS is widening by the minute to attract several Congress leaders into its fold. As if to buttress his claim, a few Congress leaders too pointed out that a tie-up with the TRS would be of great advantage for them. And, such an arrangement would be mutually beneficially for both parties. KCR, for his part, seems confident of the TRS going it alone. He quoted an NDTV survey which suggested that TRS was likely to win at least 11 out of 17 Lok Sabha seats in the region (the new State). By this measure, it should win 75-plus Assembly seats, which is a decent victory for the party once the new Assembly is carved out. Surely, a reason for him to bask. This is exactly the reason that KCR is preferring to go it alone. All surveys predicted a resounding victory for the TRS, he pointed out, suggesting that the party wasn’t really ready for forging an alliance with the Congress. Though it was perceived that there was a possibility that the TRS could enter into an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), now it is almost confirmed that the two parties will not have any pact. On the other hand, the two will be crossing swords, as the BJP will be entering into a poll arrangement with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Seemaandhra and Telangana regions. KCR also hit the Congress below the belt by announcing that the TRS had finalized its nominees for 10 Lok Sabha seats and would announce contestants for nearly 70 Assembly seats in a couple of days. While he pilloried the Congress, KCR just stopped short of casting a slur on the BJP. He signaled a possible electoral arrangement with the Majlis-e-Ittehaadul Muslimeen (MIM), an arch rival of the BJP, and also the Communist Party of India (CPI). Secretary-general of the TRS, K Keshav Rao is engaged in talks with the CPI, which wants a tie up with another Leftist party, the CPI-Marxists. If the CPI enters into a poll pact with the Congress, as indicated by its national general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy, the TRS may reconsider this option. Given its track record, whether the TRS would pass muster by adopting this new strategy of contesting all constituencies in the region becomes interesting to watch. For, it seems to be taking on too many Goliaths.