PM KCR? Why Not, Says BRS Chief

 Hyderabad: BRS president and former Telangana chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Saturday declared himself as a potential prime ministerial candidate if an opportunity arises.

Making a pronouncement that the next government at the Centre will be formed by a coalition of regional parties with the national parties – Congress or the BJP –having no option but to support it, Chandrashekar Rao made it clear that the idea of him becoming the Prime Minister will be explored.

“If an opportunity comes, why will I not be in the race for PM? Should the opportunity come, I will be in the race,” Chandrashekar Rao said at a press conference at Telangana Bhavan where he made his final pitch to voters asking them to support BRS candidates in the Lok Sabha elections.

Chandrashekar Rao a ruling coalition of regional parties “will happen 100%. BRS will get 12 or 14 seats; it will be a surprise result. We will play a key role at the Centre,” he said. “I will show what Telangana tadaka is in national politics. Whatever I can do to unite regional forces, I will do. We are in discussions with like-minded parties, though for now they are going about it their way in the elections,” he said

On illegal phone tapping when he was chief minister, Rao dismissed the case as inconsequential and said that whatever happened was an act by the police and with permissions from the Home Secretary.

Denying any knowledge or knowing former IPS officer Radhakishan Rao who is reported to have named Chandrashekar Rao the one whose directions were followed to tap phones, the BRS chief said “who is Radhakishan Rao? There are so many DCPs. As the CM I got reports from the intelligence wing. As the CM I did not know how the information was gathered. That is the job of the intelligence. Do you mean that the current intelligence is not tapping phones for the CM now? I had nothing to do with it; none of my ministers have anything to do with it.”

Any phone tapping that occurred during his rule was done in strict accordance with the Indian Telegraph Act provisions, he said, adding that the Act also provides for destruction of collected information and the procedures to do so.

On the Delhi liquor scam, he said his daughter K. Kavitha was unfairly targeted and arrested in a case cooked up by “Modi who launched a vendetta against me and Kejriwal for opposing him. And I thwarted a BJP plan to destabilize the BRS government, and sent Telangana police to arrest BJP leader B.L. Santosh who masterminded the effort and is close to Modi, who cooked up the case and arrested her just because she is my daughter.”

He also said that he faced a lot of abuse from Congress leaders.

“Generally our folks refer to me as ‘tiger’. They said they will put the tiger in a cage, build a two bedroom house in Cherlapally jail and put me there. There was a lot of very rough and nasty talk about me. And this has not gone down well with the people and has emerged as a major sore point for people and their anger towards Congress,” he said.

'Had nothing to do with phone tapping'