RAhuL-NOT-fOR-PM wILL be KCR fRONT’s RALLYING POINT
KCR will travel to Andhra, Odisha and Bengal to forge a non-Congress, non-BJP front.
Rahul-not-for-PM is going to be the premise of the federal front to be floated by Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) who won a massive mandate in the recent Assembly elections. KCR will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi next week. KCR will also revive his efforts to float a non-Congress, non-BJP federal front at the national level from next week on.
KCR has sought an appointment with the Prime Minister sometime between 25 and 28 December so that he can pay a courtesy call after taking charge as the Chief Minister for a second term last week. The PM’s Office has informed him that the meeting could take place one of the days next week, sources close to the CM said. KCR would be submitting the PM a memorandum on a range of issues.
Before that, KCR would be travelling to Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Bengal where he will kick-start his efforts to forge a federal front consisting of non-Congress and non-BJP parties. First, he will go to Visakhapatnam where he will meet Sharada Peetham Swamiji Swaroopanandendra Saraswati. Though this is termed as a personal visit, KCR is likely to seek the blessings of the Swamiji to his federal front efforts.
On Sunday, KCR will go to Bhubaneswar to meet Odisha Chief Minister and BJD leader Naveen Patnaik. KCR will be seeking the support of Patnaik to the federal front and ask him to join it too. TRS sources said that the Odisha CM is positively inclined to be with KCR on forming a regional parties’ group to press for more powers to states.
Incidentally, Patnaik, too, like KCR, is away from BJP, but treats Congress as the bigger enemy both in the state and the Centre, a senior TRS leader, who had earlier contacted the Odisha CM, said. KCR is hopeful of securing the support of Patnaik to this federal front. This meeting was supposed to be held four months ago, but the Assembly elections came in the way. KCR will also visit the Puri temple.
On Monday, KCR will go to Kolkata and meet Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. This is his second meeting with Mamata Banerjee within a year on the issue of federal front. Banerjee is in two minds on joining hands with KCR as the latter opposes both Congress and BJP in the proposed Opposi- tion unity efforts. KCR was disappointed after Banerjee moved closer to the Congress.
When KCR met her last time eight months ago, she agreed with him to keep both the Congress and BJP at bay for forming a federal front at the Centre. KCR expected Mamata Banerjee not to share the dais with Congress president Rahul Gandhi at the swearing-in ceremony of JDS leader H.D. Kumaraswamy as Karnataka Chief Minister in Bangalore, but she went ahead and shared the company of Congress leaders.
KCR is now hopeful of convincing Mamata Banerjee to keep away from the Congress in the proposed front as she was not happy with DMK president M.K. Stalin’s proposal to project Rahul Gandhi as the PM candidate of the Opposition camp. “We got a positive response from her when we asked for an appointment for Monday meeting,” a TRS MP told this newspaper on Friday.
The TRS leadership is banking on some Opposition leaders not ready to accept Rahul Gandhi as PM candidate as the rallying point for KCR’s federal front without the two big national parties. TRS MPs who might go to Kolkata on Monday are hopeful that the meeting of the two CMs would be different from their last meeting.
Likewise, KCR will also be meeting Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal sometime next week and invite him to be a part of the federal front. KCR has sought the appointment with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and BSP leader Mayawati also, but so far, they haven’t responded. KCR is yet to decide on seeking a meeting with Shiv Sena’s top leaders.
According to sources close to the Telangana CM, KCR’s main purpose at this stage is only to invite all those who don’t want to be clubbed with Congress and BJP for a series of discussions on the agenda for the federal front. KCR is planning to organise a series of workshops and discussions on the rights of the states and development models for the country.
KCR has also already announced in Hyderabad that he would like to implement his Rythu Bandhu, an investment subsidy to farmers at the rate of Rs 10,000 per acre in a year in two installments to bail out the beleaguered farm sector, at the national level if the federal front comes to power. He has asked officials to prepare a presentation on the scheme to share with experts and politicians at Delhi soon.
Already, the NITI Aayog has sought details of the scheme from the state agriculture department officials early this year, but dropped the idea of recommending to the other states for want of funds as well as lack of accurate land records all over the country.
KCR is planning to invite some national and international economists for a discussion on the scheme in Delhi soon. After wresting 88 out of 119 MLAs in the 7 December elections, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) is on an aggressive poaching spree of Congress and TDP legislators, apparently to see that the parties were decimated in both the Houses of Legislature. This poaching will also help him win almost all the 17 Lok Sabha seats from the state in the next general elections.
Thanks to a meticulously executed operation by the ruling party, Congress, which has six members in the Legislative Council, has lost its recognised opposition party status and its leader Mohammad Ali Shabbir has lost his Leader of Opposition (LoP) post with Cabinet rank in the Council. Four of the six MLCs of Congress have joined TRS and announced that their party has been merged with the ruling party.
Telangana Legislative Council chairman K. Swamy Goud on Friday issued an official announcement recognising four Congress MLCs—M.S. Prabhakar, Damodar Reddy, Akula Lalitha and Santosh Kumar—as those of TRS with immediate effort. As a result, Congress is now left with two MLCs— Mohammad Ali Shabbir and Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy.
In the Council with strength of 40 members, the minimum number of seats for a party to have the opposition status is four. Now that the Congress has just two seats, its leader Ali Shabbir has lost his LoP status. Interestingly, both Shabbir and Sudhkar Reddy would retire from the Council after expiry of their six year term by 31 March 2019. So, the Congress might lose its presence the Council after that.
Prabhakar Rao and Damodar Reddy have joined TRS before the elections, while Lalitha and Santosh Kumar have joined last week. Interestingly, Lalitha, an important OBC leader from Nizamabad district, contested the Armoor Assembly seat on Congress ticket and lost. Within 10 days after the results, she along with Santosh Kumar has decided to defect the ruling party.
This has been objected to by the Congress which has termed the developments as “murder of democracy” and announced that they would move the High Court over the Council chairman’s order on the merger. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president Uttam Kumar Reddy and Ali Shabbir said that a few legislators cannot merge a national party into a regional party.
However, TRS general secretary and MLC Palla Rajeswar Reddy defended the chairman’s decision on the ground that it was in tune with the provisions of the anti-defection law. “The chairman is justified to declare merge of a group, if it is backed by the two thirds members of a party and there is nothing wrong in it,” Reddy told this newspaper.
TRS is gearing up to ensure election of 16 vacancies that are likely to come up for the Council in the next few weeks. While six of them are necessitated due to expiry of term of members from the graduates, teachers, MLAs and local bodies’ constituencies, another 13 are needed to be filled due to either disqualification or resignation of the sitting members.
Congress MLC Komatireddy Rajagopala Reddy resigned his seat from the council after his election to the Assembly from Mugugode seat and another Congress MLC Konda Murali who defected to the party from TRS submitted his resignation due to a disqualification petition filed by the ruling party. A few more disqualification petitions filed by the TRS would be taken up by the chairman next week.
Even in the Assembly, the TRS is going to admit several MLAs from the Opposition Congress and TDP by the month end. Already, TDP’s two MLAs—Sandra Venkata Veeraiah and Mechha Nageswara Rao— are believed to have made up their mind on joining after 26 December. If they defect to the TRS, the TDP will have no representation in the Assembly.
Till now, two newly elected Independent MLAs—Ramulu Naik and Koganti Chander—have joined TRS, taking its strength to 90 and the joining of TDP MLAs will take it to 92. There are reports that some more Congress MLAs, too, are on the way to switch sides. Congress won 19 MLAs and it is unlikely to enjoy the status of recognised opposition if its number falls below 11.