BRS takes TD’s re-entry bid seriously

HYDERABAD: BRS leadership has decided to take the Telugu Desam seriously after former chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu's public meeting in Khammam, after ignoring it following the 2018 Assembly polls debacle.

Party sources said that BRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Thursday directed ministers to hold press meets to counter TD and Naidu in the run-up to the next Assembly polls.

The party leadership wants to repeat the 2018 poll strategy of playing on the ‘T’ sentiment by raking up Naidu's re-entry into TS politics. The party leadership strongly felt that the strategy, after

Naidu joined hands with the Congress and the Left parties to form the ‘mahakutami (grand alliance),’ had helped it in 2018 and would help again in 2023 if the TD chief takes an active role in Telangana politics.

In all his public meetings with Naidu as his primary target during the 2018 polls, Rao cautioned Telangana people that if the mahakutami won elections, Telangana would be back in the clutches of Andhra ‘rulers’ as Naidu will wield power through the backdoor.

Towards this end, five ministers, including T. Harish Rao addressed press meets at BRS Legislature Party (BRSLP) office here alleging that the public meeting was a drama enacted by Naidu in his desperate attempt to ally with BJP in AP.

That Harish Rao and V. Srinivas Goud, Koppula Eshwar, Puvvada Ajay and S. Niranjan Reddy held press meets — other ministers spoke in the districts — to counter TD and Naidu created a buzz in BRS circles seeing this as an unusual phenomenon.

This was despite the fact that Naidu did not even take the name of either BRS, Chandrashekar Rao or Telangana government in his hour-long speech in Khammam on Wednesday.

He only repeated his previous claims of developing Hyderabad by bringing IT, pharma companies, international airport and ORR during his nine-year stint as Chief Minister of the undivided Andhra Pradesh.

Party sources said that the ministers got a call from the Chief Minister on Thursday morning directing them to hold press meets to attack TDP and Naidu. They said the ministers were clueless on what to counter when Naidu had spoken nothing against the BRS or Chandrashekar Rao or the Telangana government.

They immediately issued instructions to staff in BRSLP office to prepare points to counter Naidu. The ministers dubbing Naidu as ‘anti Telangana’ alleged that Naidu had brought pressure on the BJP-led government at the Centre to merge seven mandals in Khammam into AP, taking over Sileru power plant from TS even before TRS government took over in June 2014.