Hyderabad: Top Opposition leaders, including the Chief Ministers of four states, are expected to attend a public meeting called by BRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao in Khammam on January 18 to lead the Opposition's show of strength amid efforts to evolve a common strategy to defeat the BJP-led NDA next year.
This is the first public meeting after Election Commission approved the party’s name change from the TRS to the BRS on December 8.
The CM has invited Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader and Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, Samajwadi Party chief and former Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav, JDS leader and former Karnataka CM H.D.Kumaraswamy besides a few regional party leaders.
The CM wants to present the BRS national political goals and objectives, as well as the schemes and development programmes that it intends to undertake if elected in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. According to party insiders, Kejriwal and Mann have confirmed their presence.
The CM will launch Kanti Velugu 2.0 in Khammam along with CMs after inaugurating the district collectorate. The CM has set a target for Khammam district party leaders to mobilise five lakh people for the public meeting and make the BRS first public meeting a grand success.
Rao held a meeting with the party's Khammam district leaders at Pragathi Bhavan on Monday, which was attended by ministers T. Harish Rao, Vemula Prashanth Reddy, Puvvada Ajay Kumar, Lok Sabha member Nama Nageshwara Rao, Rajya Sabha members Bandi Parthasarathi Reddy,V. Ravichandra, MLCs Palla Rajeshwar Reddy, Tata Madhu, MLAs Haripriya Nayak, Rega Kantha Rao, K. Upender Reddy, Sandra Venkata Veeraiah, L.Ramulu Nayak, among others.
Interestingly, the CM has decided to hold a rally in Khammam a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Hyderabad on January 19 for launching development programmes. Party sources said the CM will not receive the PM at the airport nor participate in the PM's programmes in the city on January 18.
The last time the CM met the PM was on September 2, 2021 in New Delhi. Despite Modi's multiple visits to Telangana in 2022, the CM avoided him and delegated minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav to receive him at the airport, following a fierce political tussle between the BRS and the BJP in Telangana since the Huzurabad Assembly bypoll in November 2021.
According to sources, the CM told Khammam leaders that TRS's first public meeting in Karimnagar in May 2001, just two weeks after launching TRS in April 2001, was a resounding success, with nearly 2.5 lakh people in attendance, and that BRS first public meeting attendance should have double the crowd.
Since Khammam is located on Andhra Pradesh border, the possibility of mobilising people from bordering areas in AP was also discussed in the meeting in the wake of BRS launching its first state wing in AP last week with the appointment of Thota Chandrashekar as AP BRS wing president.
It was decided to mobilise three lakh people from undivided Khammam district alone while remaining two lakh from Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar, Mahbubabad, and other districts.
Meanwhile, speaking at a book release function here on Monday, TRS working president K.T.Rama Rao said that the party was going 'pan-India' with BRS. He said when a cinema with good content can go pan-India and become a big hit, why not a party and a leader with good content will become a hit in national politics.
Rama Rao said there will always be naysayers whenever one attempts to achieve new goals and they should not be taken seriously. "We achieved several impossible things in Telangana in the last eight years. In the similar manner, we are confident of repeating the success with BRS in national politics."
