‘Blind hatred for Modi cannot be sole agenda’: BRS reveals why KCR gave up on Opposition unity long ago

Noting that “blind hatred” for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the sole agenda of ousting him from power cannot be the plank to unite Opposition parties, Bharat Rashtra Samiti working president KT Rama Rao said, adding that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had given up on the idea of uniting the Opposition precisely for this reason.

The BRS, previously known as the Telangana Rashtra Samiti, said that people will not welcome such an approach and said it was the very reason KCR was charting his own course. “People need a better model of governance and not a mere change of leadership face,” KTR said, interacting with reporters in Hyderabad on Thursday.

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“After trying to unite the opposition, KCR has realised the futility of it without a new governance model which is the need of the country,” he added. Notably, KCR met several Opposition leaders over the past two years, barring the Congress and the BJP, in a bid to form a non-Congress front.

However, he later rebranded his own party in a bid to make it wider and more acceptable as a national party as he rechristened the TRS as BRS. He is currently on his own and the party has given no indications of allying either with the Congress or the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.

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KTR, however, was careful that his reservations on Opposition unity were not seen as the party going soft on the BJP. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said, would be ousted from power in the coming elections. Holding his government responsible for highest inflation, highest unemployment, highest fuel prices and lowest value of the Indian rupee, KTR termed Modi as the “most incompetent and inefficient Prime Minister in independent India’s history”.

The remarks by KTR come a week ahead of the proposed Opposition meeting in Patna which will be chaired by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Notably, KCR had travelled to Patna in August last year where the two leaders jointly called for a “BJP-mukt Bharat”. While KCR and Nitish were both seen nurturing national ambitions, the talks failed over Nitish’s insistence on keeping Congress at the Centre of any alliance of Opposition parties at the national level.

The remarks by KTR also assume significance in view of the approaching Assembly elections in Telangana, scheduled to be held in November-December this year, where the BRS will be squaring off against the BJP as well as the Congress. In June this year, KTR had said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi should switch his career from politics to an “NGO job”.

The remarks also coincided with Rahul’s ongoing visit to the US where he exuded confidence in the Opposition forming a government at the Centre. “Opposition is getting more and more united. We are having conversations with all the Opposition (parties). I think quite a lot of good work is happening. It’s a complicated discussion because there are spaces where we have competing also with (other) Opposition (parties). So, it’s a little bit of give and take as required. But I’m confident that that will happen,” Rahul said in Washington DC on Thursday.