Telangana Bhavan left deserted as BRS leaders shy away after rout

Hyderabad: This was not the scene the BRS had hoped to see at its headquarters, the Telangana Bhavan, on the day Lok Sabha 2024 elections were declared on Tuesday.

The party leadership had claimed that it would win 12 to 14 of the 17 Lok Sabha seats up for grabs in the state.

Had this transpired, the party office would have been as busy as a bustling beehive. Instead, on Tuesday, the atmosphere in Telangana Bhavan was funereal. With none of their easily recognizable leaders present, and a motley gathering of people, many of them reporters, the BRS headquarters was a pale shadow of its glory days.

There was no bustle, no hustle and no security guards scurrying after people parking their vehicles around the building. And of course, there were no sweets to be distributed, nor flowers to greet any winners, or firecrackers to make some noise.

The fall from the nine Lok Sabha seats it won in the 2019 general elections to the zero it ended up with on Tuesday, was perhaps too much for anyone to bear. The deserted party office, however, did have a smattering of party leaders, who attempted to brush the day’s crushing losses aside declaring that it is not the results that matter but the spirit to do better the next time is what counts. Watching the unfolding party catastrophe on television, former minister and BRS leader Ponnala Lakshmaiah told the Deccan Chronicle, “As a politician, the result does not matter. What matters is how to do better, the next time around. It’s the choice of the people." Also present at the gloomy party office, former Rajya Sabha member Ravula Chandrasekhar Reddy said, “KCR is not a person who gives up. He will fight back. As opposition party leaders, we will press on the Congress government to deliver on its 420 assurances and six guarantees. We are not going to leave them; we will be chasing them on behalf of the people to fulfill all their promises," he said.