lok-sabha-elections

Updated: May 13, 2019 16:53 IST

With the DMK giving up its initial hesitation and deciding to entertain Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, his idea of a federal non-BJP and non-Congress front appears to be gathering momentum.

KCR, as the president of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) is popularly known, met DMK chief MK Stalin in Chennai late on Monday afternoon.

With the Lok Sabha election over in the southern states, Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Raohas revived his pet project in the hope that the regional parties such as the DMK, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Trinamool Congress would perform better than the Congress or the BJP in the Lok Sabha election 2019.

Last week, there was a cloud of uncertainty as to whether the meeting would take place since the DMK had not confirmed the date citing Stalin’s preoccupations with the campaign for the crucial by-poll for four assembly seats in Tamil Nadu. The by-election is slated for May 19, during the seventh and last phase of the Lok Sabha election.

The ambivalence of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the uncertainty about the meeting stemmed from the fact that the opposition party in Tamil Nadu is a strong ally of the Congress. Stalin was also the first to endorse Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s name for the prime ministership.

Now, it has emerged that the Congress itself has reached out to KCR and YSR Congress leader Jagan Mohan Reddy. But, both have reportedly asked the national party to wait till the outcome of the Lok Sabha election on May 23.

KCR has already met Kerala chief minister and CPI(M) veteran Pinarayi Vijayan on May 6 in Thiruvananthapuram. Vijayan too told the media that the meeting was significant.

This would be the second time that KCR will be holding talks with Stalin on his ambitious political project, which is seen as the medium to catapult him on the national stage. The last time that he held discussions with Stalin was on April 2018, months before the death of DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi.

Earlier, while the Congress was also apprehensive, other allies such as the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) of Thol Thirumavalavan termed KCR as a Trojan Horse of the BJP out to wreck the secular consolidation.

However, the DMK had played them down and made it clear that there is nothing wrong in engaging with KCR.

“They have asked for a meeting. We can convince and win him over to our side. It is an opportunity to exchange views and discuss the political situation,” was the explanation of the DMK’s organising secretary TKS Elangovan.

Interestingly, the federal front is KCR’s counter to his rival and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s mahagathbandhan to oust Prime Minister Narendra Modi.