KCR masterstroke has Congress in two states in a tizzy

HYDERABAD: If a bit of Phantom comics’ lore was to be borrowed and paraphrased for Telangana politics and its ripple effect, it could read — ‘Don’t underestimate, or lower your guard, with KCR. You never know when and how he will strike next.’

Two big hopes of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi — D. K. Shivakumar and A. Revanth Reddy, presidents of the Karnataka and Telangana PCCs — are reeling hard from the ‘one-stone-two-bird’ tactic of BRS supremo K. Chandrashekar Rao.

With Karnataka (in April-May) and Telangana (in November-December) going to elections this year, Shivakumar and Revanth Reddy are leading the Congress’ hopes for a comeback to power, with its massive political stakes and for control over the huge rapidly growing economies and IT capitals of Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

Rao’s decision to transform the regional TRS into the BRS, with national ambitions, has been received with the usually guarded optimism to outright scepticism over its potential impact, but the Congress in the two southern states is already feeling the impact of his moves.

The Congress, as per surveys, is marginally ahead of the BJP in the dynamically changing hustings of Karnataka, where Chandrashekar Rao made aggressive overtures to the third party — H.D. Kumaraswamy’s JD(S) — and declared its intent to contest the upcoming elections.

For the Congress, which would not like any disruption of the status quo, a JD(S)-BRS alliance would have been difficult but, as per political observers, the BJP too has upped the ante in the game. Scuttlebutt has it that the BJP has reached out to the grand old man of Karnataka politics, former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, and reportedly got his assurance for a post-poll tie-up.

This, sources in the BRS explain, could be the possible reason why Kumaraswamy opted to skip the recent Khammam meeting of Chandrashekar Rao, in which the AAP, Samajwadi Party and the Left leaders participated.

The recent meeting of a Congress leader from Karnataka, Zameer Ahmed Khan, with Chandrashekar Rao, facilitated by the controversial Tandur MLA ‘Pilot’ Rohit Reddy, who won as a Congress MLA and defected to the-then TRS, and was involved in the poachgate scandal, has shocked both Shivakumar and Revanth Reddy.

There were allegations and condemnations by several Congress leaders, saying Chandrashekar Rao had offered Rs 500 crore to Zameer Ahmed to weaken the prospects of the Congress in over 30-odd crucial Assembly seats in Karnataka, where a tight electoral battle is projected.

While Ahmed, who denied the allegations, described it as a mere courtesy call, and Shivakumar refused to respond to the charges, Revanth Reddy called it a full-blown conspiracy of the BRS, in partnership with the BJP, to weaken the Congress.

While political charges can never be proved and no one will ever discover the truth, the little drama has exposed how powerfully Chandrashekar Rao’s BRS can play a game-changing role in politics. If Rao succeeds in scuttling the prospects of the Congress in Karnataka, even if the BJP gains, he would stall and negate all potential benefits the Congress in Telangana would have found – from narrative to funding.

Chandrashekar Rao is keen to hit the Congress in Telangana, its real first alternative and competitor, by nipping it in the bud in the neighbouring state. And for BRS under Chandrashekar Rao, this is just the beginning of the national politics game.