Hyderabad: The Bharata Rashtra Samithi’s (BRS) recent overtures to the Congress central leadership have left state Congress leaders disconcerted and in discomfort.
They see in BRS moves a clear strategy to equate the ongoing probe against Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao’s daughter K. Kavitha in the liquor scam with that of disqualification of MP Rahul Gandhi from the Lok Sabha, and portray both as vendetta politics.
“By extending an olive branch to the high command, the BRS also wants to take steam out of our fight against KCR on corruption front,” a senior state Congress leader pointed out.
Chandrashekar Rao was the first among the Opposition leaders to condemn the disqualification of Rahul Gandhi, following a Surat court’s verdict in a defamation case. Within no time of the Chief Minister issuing a press release, BRS ministers, MPs and other leaders competed with one other in rushing to the media to call the disqualification a “blot on democracy”.
Extending solidarity did not end with mere condemnation but the Chief Minister followed it up with the active participation of party MPs in all Opposition agitation programmes, both within the House and outside, held under the leadership of Congress.
BRS parliamentary party leader K. Keshava Rao and Lok Sabha floor leader Nama Nageswara Rao were regulars at all the united Opposition meetings in the national capital.
“He (Chandrashekar Rao) is also trying to divert people’s attention from the liquor scam and Kavitha’s questioning by the Enforcement Directorate,” said another Congress leader, who sees a massive public outcry against what he described as the “corrupt regime of KCR”.
“People are spontaneously reacting to criticism against KCR’s family members during our padayatras held by both Pradesh Congress Committee president Revanth Reddy and Congress Legislature Party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka,” he said.
Congress leaders are also worried about the BJP taking advantage of the BRS outreach to their central leadership and further consolidating its attempts to position itself as the principal Opposition in the state.
“No surprise if he tries to convert this bonhomie into an electoral alliance,” a Congress MP said, cautioning the high command against entertaining any such proposal.
“Central leadership may be lured with more Lok Sabha seats, but we have to remember that polls to Assembly will be over much before the Lok Sabha; we all know what happened to KCR’s promise to merge his party with the Congress in 2014,” the MP said.
