With BRS supremo K Chandrashekar Rao confining himself indoors, the party is being drawn in three different directions by his son KT Rama Rao, nephew T Harish Rao and daughter K Kavitha.
Published Dec 12, 2024 | 12:00 PM ⚊ Updated Dec 12, 2024 | 12:00 PM
Harish Rao, KCR and KTR.
There is a saying that in politics, there are only suicides and no murders.
The three major players in Telangana politics — the Congress, BRS and BJP — will be committing harakiri if they do not learn lessons from the people’s verdict in the 2023 Assembly elections.
If the Congress does not consolidate its gains, if the BRS does not retrieve its lost ground and finally if the BJP does not make any efforts to fill the vacuum created by the BRS, they will be meeting their Waterloo.
Interestingly, there are opportunities for the three parties to grow, though they may not be equal.
There is no point in crying over spilt milk if they remain inactive now and do not grab the opportunities unfolding before them. Blaming others would have no purpose if they failed to move forward without making any mistakes. This is the secret of success.
Viewed from this angle, the BRS remains where it is, unable to rise after its Assembly poll debacle. It is more than a year since it has been remaining unable to find its feet.
With party supremo K Chandrashekar Rao confining himself indoors, the party is being drawn in three different directions by his son KT Rama Rao, nephew T Harish Rao and daughter K Kavitha.
As a result, the party does not have a direction at present.
KCR is not stirring out of his farmhouse. He is meeting party leaders there itself, and sending out his thoughts. He is yet to come into the midst of the people. He is not making any public statements.
KTR and Harish Rao, though important members of the KCR family, are trying for one-upmanship in the party. They are moving in their own chosen paths, implementing their strategies.
After obtaining bail in the Delhi excise scam case, Kavitha has kept a low profile for some time. But lately, she is seen in public life, taking up political programmes and issuing statements. The party insiders say that KCR is not very happy about Kavitha’s line of action. But Kavitha seems to be keen on ploughing her furrow.
KCR has recently given clear indications on the future course of the party. He said that since it is already one year since the Congress came to power, it was time to expose its failures on all fora. The party should focus on the problems of the people.
He gave a clear road map to the party MLAs and MLCs at a meeting with them. But the question remains: If KCR does not lead from the front, can the party move forward and take on the Congress?
At the ground level, the party is dormant. If KCR leads the party in the Assembly and outside, the party will have new energy. If he leads the BRS army, it would have a different dimension. This is what the average BRS leaders and workers believe in.
It is hard to find a logical reason for KCR not being active in politics. He had reportedly asked a couple of times whether he should compete with A Revanth Reddy. But the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh has an example.
Until N Chandrababu Naidu came out and began leading the party from the front, the people did not follow him. Though he had his son Lokesh take out a statewide padayatra, it didn’t cut any ice with the people, until Naidu himself took up the gauntlet.
The same principle works in Telangana too.
Though there are several parallels for the two former chief ministers, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and K Chandrashekar Rao, one difference stands out. Jagan never addressed media conferences when he was the chief minister while KCR used to hold such meetings frequently.
Now out of power, Jagan is holding press conferences frequently while KCR has withdrawn into a shell. In Punjab, when Captain Amarinder Singh confined himself to his farmhouse, the people rejected him. After he came out and began mingling with people, it turned the tide in his favour.
Though the people had given one-third of the seats and asked the BRS to play the role of the Opposition, an impression is gaining ground among people that the BRS was not studiously doing the job assigned to it.
A recent People’s Pulse’s Instant Survey revealed that BRS has not yet picked up. The image of the Congress had fallen anywhere between seven to 10 percent but that of the BRS rose more than one to two percent. Interestingly, the people’s support for the BJP rose by eight to 13 percent. This portends danger for the BRS.
A party can call the ruling dispensation to account for any number of issues. But it should also do an honest self-appraisal.
If this crucial exercise is given a go, the party would not be able to move forward. In the 2018 Assembly elections, the vote share of BRS was 46.9 percent while the Congress got just 28.4 percent. In 2023, BRS’ vote share crashed to 37.35 percent and it stood defeated. The Congress’s share went up to 39.20 percent and it wrested power from the BRS.
In the Lok Sabha elections that followed in about five to six months, Congress’s vote share remained constant at 40.1 percent but the BRS’ vote share crashed further to 16.68 percent, which is 21 percent less compared to its vote share in the Assembly elections. Compared to its 46 percent vote share in 2018, an all-time high for the party, it lost 30 percent of the votes.
The winner was the BJP. Though it may look like a jugglery of figures, it is an indication that the BRS is losing people’s support.
If one takes a look at the 2018-23 election results, KTR has lost 23 percent of votes (from 70 percent to 47 percent) in Sircilla, and Harish Rao lost 20 percent of votes (from 78 percent to 58 percent) in Siddipet.
KCR, who himself does not know why he contested from Kamareddy, lost 12 percent of votes (from 60 percent to 48 percent) in Gajwel even though he contested the election in his capacity as the chief minister.
This decline in people’s support took place despite V Pratap Reddy, who fought against him in the past, changing the colour of his plumes and joining forces with him in the last Assembly elections.
If the slide started on the slippery slope of politics, it would be relentless and inexorable. It would be impossible for one to stop until one lands at the bottom with a thud.
The next litmus test for the BRS will be the election to the Legislative Council from the graduates’ constituency which spans over four erstwhile districts of Adilabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Medak, and which includes the three Assembly segments, Sircilla, Gajwel and Siddipet.
The tussle for dominance in the party between KTR and Harish Rao is an open secret. If KTR is considered to be the leader of the UT (Udyama Telangana) batch, Harish Rao leads the BT (Bangaru Telangana) batch.
It is not clear to which school Kavitha’s followers belong. KTR does not have as much support as Harish Rao has from party cadres at the ground level. Similarly, Harish Rao does not get the importance that KTR gets in the media.
Internecine quarrels always take a very heavy toll on a party’s growth. Khammam district is a case in point. The BRS could not win more than one seat in this district. The party leaders including ministers, MPs (Rajya Sabha), MLAs and MLCs are in a quandary as to whether they should be with KTR or Harish Rao. They are unable to assess whether it would be harmful or beneficial if they stick with KTR or Harish Rao. KCR has to expediently find a solution to this problem.
When NTR senior was the chief minister and was calling the shots, there was a similar tussle for leadership between his two sons-in-law. Realising the inherent danger if it is allowed to fester, he cleverly sent one to Delhi and retained the other in Hyderabad.
KCR now is facing a similar situation but here it is between his son and nephew. Until KCR resolves this issue, they continue to remain poles apart. The BRS leadership cannot afford to ignore Harish Rao as he not only has a grip over the party cadres but is also a shrewd strategist.
The party had to suffer the loss of face for letting out the impression that Harish Rao was being sidelined after the BRS’ victory in the 2018 elections. KCR later managed to undo the damage before it became too late unmanageable.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy is surging ahead with a clear strategy to hijack the Telangana legacy associated with the BRS. He had named educational institutions after Telangana’s iconic figures and came out with his brand of Telangana Thalli. The BRS at this juncture should not be foolhardy to burn its fingers with half-baked experiments.
If the BRS does not regain its lost territories, the BJP which is waiting exactly for such an opportunity might expand to fill the space. The BRS should keep in mind that in several states, the BJP is out-growing Congress. If it does and takes corrective steps, it can emerge as an alternative to the Congress in Telangana.
But the question remains: Can the BRS win the war without its general leading it from the front?
(This article was first published in Telugu in the Velugu newspaper. Political analyst and commentator R Dileep Reddy is the Director, People’s Pulse).
