Hyderabad: The BRS, ploughing a lonely furrow since its defeat in the Assembly elections, on Tuesday found a partner in the Bahujan Samaj Party — which failed to win a single seat in the polls. BRS president K. Chandrashekar Rao said the BRS would jointly contest the coming Lok Sabha elections with the BSP.
BSP state president R.S. Praveen Kumar, a former IPS officer, met with Rao at the latter’s residence in the city, following which the BRS chief announced the alliance.
Though the BSP failed to make any inroads under Praveen Kumar’s leadership, Rao accepted the alliance against the backdrop of the BRS struggling to find candidates. Even worse, some of the candidates the BRS sounded out were said to be reluctant to enter the fray, given the perception that there was still substantial anger and opposition to the party among voters.
One of the reasons that Praveen Kumar — a former staunch and at times vitriolic critic of Rao’s government and its policies — put forth for the alliance was what he called “the need to protect the Constitution.” He told reporters after meeting Rao that “secularism and the Constitution are under threat from the BJP and Congress in Telangana state. This alliance will change the people of Telangana, all Bahujan sections will benefit.”
Praveen Kumar’s comments on the need to protect the Constitution fly in the face of Rao’s February 2, 2022 stand that the country must have an entirely new Constitution. Rao had then saidL “India requires a new Constitution, I am proposing this before the nation.”
It was that press conference that Rao had said that many nations rewrote their Constitutions. India, he had said, required a new Constitution, based on new thinking. Rao who was Chief Minister then, and the party was still called the TRS, had further said that changing the Constitution would be his party’s slogan.
On Tuesday, after meeting with Kumar, Rao said the BRS and the BSP were theoretically of the same mind and recalled how the BRS government had implemented several welfare schemes for Dalits including Dalit Bandhu.
“The BRS and BSP will work together. He (Praveen) spoke to his high command and in principle the decision has been taken to work together. As a partner, they will contest in some seats, and we will contest in some. I will be speaking with BSP president Mayawati tomorrow,” Rao said.
The tie-up received immediate flak from one of Kumar’s supporters, Akunuri Murali, who had also quit his job as an IAS officer in opposition to Rao’s governance.
In a post on X, Murali said he was at a loss of words on how to respond to the development. “Does this mean all your criticism of BRS in the past is wrong, and has KCR, who was the villain then for you, now turned into a hero,” he asked.
“It looks like you are willing to ride even a donkey just to become an MP (I apologise to the donkey). This is simply unjust police boss. After witnessing your politics, youth will no longer trust anyone in politics,” Murali said.
Similarly, Dalit Shakti Party president Visharadan Maharaj said on X that the dark secret friends have now come into the open. “It is now clear that Praveen’s battle against KCR was just bogus. The Bahujan communities now have clarity,” he said.
