KCR remains on backfoot against BJP, hints all set' at top

Hyderabad: Telangana Rashtra Samithi supremo and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao continues to be on the backfoot while negotiating the strident and aggressive attacks of the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

He chose to not retaliate against the BJP’s increased criticism of his governance as well as an unprecedented attack at a personal level by the state BJP chief Bandi Sanjay at the TRS party’s state executive meet on Sunday.

Chandrashekar Rao, indeed, tried to repeat the strategy he successfully implemented with another national party, the Congress, during the agitation for a separate Telangana – differentiating between the Central and state leaderships; show respect to the central high command and ignore the state unit.

Speaking at the party meet, the TRS supremo sought to project, though not explicitly, that he had “struck a chord with the BJP national leadership”. He is said to have commented that he “could not reveal everything that transpires” between him and the Centre, read the Modi-Shah duo, in the larger interest of the state.

“A master strategist, KCR knows when to strike as we all saw during the statehood struggle,” a senior party leader said. Till then, he doesn’t mind being on the backfoot and can ignore criticism of surrendering to a rival, he added.

The TRS chief remained silent even after Sanjay ridiculed his last trip to New Delhi, which he said was a “desperate attempt to please the national leadership”.

“He (CM KCR) can’t escape punishment in graft cases just by prostrating before PM Modi and home minister Amit Shah,” Sanjay said at a presser a day after CM Rao came back after meeting the Prime Minister.

Be it launch of an indefinite fast, the defining moment in the statehood agitation, bringing in all political parties into the agitation through the formation of a political JAC or assuring Congress chief Sonia Gandhi of merging TRS, a promise that proved later to be a lie, that Rao had his way and the final laugh, all ridicules along the way notwithstanding.

Blow-hot-blow-cold approach is imbibed into his political philosophy, a minister pointed out.

The state BJP however continues to ridicule the Chief Minister for what they describe as his futile attempts to keep his partymen under a false belief that the Modi-Shah duo were won over by him.

Maintaining that the BJP was not Congress to have a deep divide between the Central and state leaderships, they say that KCR’s rhetoric was a ploy to keep flock together and prevent exodus. “He lies to people. Now it is proved, he is lying and misleading even his party men,” said a BJP leader.