HYDERABAD: Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao had declared during the 2018 Assembly elections that the Congress was their opponent and would not consider the BJP as a rival. In this year’s GHMC elections, he has completely ignored the Congress and is focusing his attack totally on the BJP.
Even during the 2016 GHMC election, the TRS had gone in by treating the Congress as its main rival. Incidentally, the Congress had to settle for two seats, BJP four and TRS bagged power with 99 seats.
But this paradigm shift of Chandrashekar Rao has surprised political circles and his own party leaders and cadre. They feel that the CM had clarity in his hard-hitting attacks at the BJP as giving any scope for the saffron party to build its base here would prove costly for the state government to maintain peace. The city has not witnessed any sort of communal trouble during the last six years.
The TRS chief with his speech during the Parliamentary Party and Legislative Party meeting gave a clear indication of the party’s stand in the civic body elections. Ironically, the Congress figured only in a passing mention.
The party leaders are of the opinion that the TRS’s aggressive approach would provoke saffron party leaders, who create trouble in the city. Such a tense situation could turn in favour of the ruling party and tilt the scales the TRS way as people would see through the game-plan of BJP.