Master of Desertions KCR Struggling to Keep Flock Together As Karma Hits Back

Hyderabad: The devastating impact of Zero — the number of seats the BRS got in Lok Sabha elections — began to surface, as the fledgling, tottering party is facing desertions by elected representatives in increasing numbers.

The pink party, battling for bare survival in a state it once dominated, has been pushed back to the wall strongly by both the national parties, appears to have woken up to the threat of it further getting decimated with its legislators slowly, but surely lining up before the Congress to join the ruling party in the state. Ironically, everything the Congress is doing today is drawn as a leaf from the KCR doctrine of weakening other parties during his nearly a decade of rule.

In an ominous sign that things are getting out of hand for BRS president K. Chandrashekar Rao on Tuesday some of his MLAs and MLCs summoned him to his farmhouse in Erravalli village for an interaction. Reportedly, he tried to elicit their views on how the party could protect itself from the Congress adopting the KCR tactics.

Chandrashekhar Rao, it is learnt from sources, seems to have tried to impress upon the BRS legislators on the need to be with the party during its hour of deep crisis, and to not take hasty steps, and that even if some have already left it, the party would emerge from this crisis too, as it had done in past.

After the BRS president launched some desperate rearguard action, several of his party leaders, on cue, "launched scathing attacks" on the Congress for encouraging defection. These protestations are not expected to find much purchase among people, or even the BRS cadre, given its own history of attempting to swallow opposition parties in the past.

During its first term, the BRS took into its fold four MPs, 25 MLAs, 18 MLCs from other parties, while in its second term that began in 2019, it took into its fold 14 MLAs from other parties — 12 MLAs from the Congress and two from the Telugu Desam. This past record of the BRS in practically emptying the opposition benches in the Legislature, is expected to blunt any of its attacks on the Congress and leave it exposed to charges that it was the ‘trendsetter’ on this front and now that the shoe is on the other foot, it is crying hoarse.

At Erravalli, Chandrashekar Rao’s meeting assumed significance amidst serious speculation that a number of BRS MLAs — from 34 left with the party as on Tuesday — particularly those representing constituencies falling in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation area, are likely to quit and join the Congress.

While some in the BRS said the party legislators called on Chandrashekar Rao to express solidarity with him, it is learnt they were asked to come to the farmhouse. Among those at the meeting were MLAs K.P. Vivekanand from Quthbullapur, Arekapudi Gandhi from Serilingampally, Maganti Gopinath from Jubilee Hills, Madhavaram Krishna Rao from Kukatpally, Muta Gopal from Musheerabad, T. Prakash Goud from Rajendranagar and Vemula Prashanth Reddy from Balkonda constituencies, along with MLCs Seri Subhash Reddy and Dande Vittal. Also present was Siddipet MLA T Harish Rao. Interestingly, Sircilla MLA K.T. Rama Rao was absent.

BRS leader and former minister G. Jagadish Reddy said the BRS will seek disqualification of five MLAs, who quit the party and joined the Congress. He told reporters that the BRS will meet the Assembly Speaker and submit a representation seeking suspension of five BRS MLAs who defected to the Congress.