From ‘best friend’ to ‘foe’ to ‘good friend’ again: Telangana CM KCR’s many takes on PM Narendra Modi

Cut to 15 June 2023.

At a BRS party event in Nagpur, KCR reiterated his 2018 description of Modi, albeit with a different set of words. “Modi achche mitra hai” (Modi is a good friend)” the Telangana Chief Minister said.

Between the two dates, KCR has rained accusations, criticisms, and more on Narendra Modi and his party BJP.

Such was the animosity between the two leaders that KCR has even refused to receive Modi or share a stage with him during his visits to Telangana in the recent past.

“Ineffective”, “faulty”, “harasser of non-BJP governments”, are just some of the phrases KCR has used in the last few years to describe Narendra Modi — whom he now he again calls a “good friend”.

Related: KCR calls PM Modi a ‘good friend’, sets political circles abuzz

Blowing hot, blowing cold

This blow hot, blow cold approach of the Telangana chief minister and BRS patriarch toward Modi has grabbed attention in poll-bound Telangana, not only for his statements but also his party’s approach to Modi and BJP as elections close in.

The chief minister, popularly referred to as KCR, had once said Modi was in the habit of resorting to antics like presenting himself as Rabindranath Tagore when visiting West Bengal, wearing a lungi when he is in Tamil Nadu, sporting a turban when in Punjab, and donning the attire native to the North East whenever he happened to be there.

As recently as December last year, KCR had accused Modi of “plotting to topple” his government in Telangana.

More recently, he said Modi’s reply in Parliament after the ruckus over the Hindenburg report on industrialist Adani, was most “disgusting” as it skirted the core issue of the discussion, and made both Modi and Rahul Gandhi remain locked in a fight over who was the worst in toppling governments.

His derisive, disdainful, and outright fiery words, while running down the BJP dispensation and Modi, are not new to the people of Telangana.

It is for this reason that the sudden change of gears — not just by KCR but also other leaders of his party like his son and Cabinet colleague KT Rama Rao — has grabbed attention.

Also read: BRS rests its guns against BJP. What is behind it?

Comments against Modi’s policies

A day before the 7th Governing Council meeting of the Niti Aayog in August last year, KCR, while announcing that he was boycotting it, described the body that replaced the Planning Commission as the “most useless” forum. He even demanded that it be shut down.

Incidentally, on 15 June, as he referred to Modi as a “achche mitra”, he fondly recalled the very same Niti Aayog: “In Niti Aayog meetings, there were instances of sharing best practices and new ideas on good governance with the prime minister. There is nothing wrong in exchanging ideas.”

KCR was in his most aggressive avatar while addressing a media conference over alleged attempt to poach his MLAs by purported BJP emissaries on 26 October last year, in the run-up to the 3 November by-election to the Munugode Assembly seat in Nalgonda district, where he presented evidence of the attempt of alleged BJP’s emissaries to spirit away four BRS MLAs.

He said that the BJP and Modi were adopting methods that struck at the very roots of democracy.

“How can a leader like Modi, who is the prime minister of the country, go to West Bengal and say that quite a few MLAs of the TMC (Trinamool Congress) were in touch with him? Can a prime minister talk like this? He and the BJP seem to have made it their business to pull down democratically-elected governments all over the country,” he said.

Related: KCR has given up efforts to unite the Opposition, says KTR

Poetic criticisms against Modi

KCR’s ability to lampoon Modi did not have a parallel either.

Recently, in the state Assembly, while explaining how Modi’s supporters in Parliament praise him sky-high even when there was no case to do so, KCR said sometimes they would not understand that they were, in fact, landing their leader in hot water.

Describing their sycophancy, he recited a poem, the gist of which runs like this.

“There used to be a king called Tirumalarayudu. Unfortunately, he had only one eye. A poet wanted to get some financial help from him and decided to praise him. He recited a poem in which he asks the king not to worry that he has only one eye since, when he is in the company of his wife, he would have three eyes, including his wife’s two eyes, making him as powerful as Lord Shiva who has three eyes.”

“Not stopping at that, he told the king that he was as great and as powerful as Shukracharya, the guru of demons of the yore since he too had only one eye. Then, even if he loses his lone eye, he need not worry, since he would be as great as Dritarashtra, the king of Kauvaras, who does not have both his eyes.”

Also read: Hard political calculations behind KCR-Owaisi ‘friendship’

Now eyeing a hattrick in poll-bound Telangana, KCR — who has changed his party’s name from TRS to BRS with national ambitions — has re-focused his energies on Congress instead of BJP and Narendra Modi in an indication that he does not want to set up a “Modi versus KCR” poll battle.