india

Updated: Jun 13, 2019 19:16 IST

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi leadership has decided to adopt a cautious approach towards the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre in the wake of an aggressive stand being taken by the Bharatiya Janata Party in Telangana.

TRS president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who addressed the TRS parliamentary party meeting at his camp office Pragati Bhavan on Thursday afternoon, discussed in detail the strategy to be adopted by the party MPs in the ensuing parliament session.

He appointed senior MP K Keshav Rao as the TRS Parliamentary Party leader and also the party’s floor leader in the Rajya Sabha. Khammam MP Nama Nageswara Rao will be the party’s floor leader in the Lok Sabha, Medak MP Kotha Prabhakar Reddy would be the deputy floor leader and Zaheerabad MP B B Patil will be the party whip.

In Rajya Sabha, B Prakash Mudiraj will be the TRS deputy floor leader and J Santosh Kumar would be the party whip.

A TRS leader familiar with the development said KCR advised party MPs to raise issues concerning the state in Parliament without adopting any confrontationist approach. “Our focus should be on securing the maximum benefits for the state. The MPs should move together and meet the Union ministers regularly to follow up on our representations,” the TRS president is learnt to have told the MPs.

KCR, who will be leaving for New Delhi on Friday to attend the Niti Aayog general council meeting on Saturday, is expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other important Union ministers with a wish list. “It is also an attempt to maintain a cordial relationship with the Centre,” the TRS leader said.

KCR is aware of the fact that the BJP leadership is planning to expand its base in Telangana by adopting an aggressive stand towards the TRS, while extending a friendly hand to the YSR Congress party headed by Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

“Though KCR had mooted the idea of a federal front before the elections with the support of Jagan, the plan was to bargain with the BJP for a few posts at the Centre, in case the NDA fell short of numbers. But our plan did not work out with the BJP getting a huge mandate,” another TRS leader said.

The BJP, which surprisingly won four out of 17 Lok Sabha seats, is looking for an opportunity to emerge as a potential alternative to the TRS. “Our aim is to grab power in Telangana in the 2023 assembly elections. There is a clear political vacuum in the state due to disappearance of the TDP and weakening of the Congress. We shall fill this vacuum,” BJP state president K Laxman said.

The party is also aiming at luring senior Congress and TDP leaders in the coming days to take on the TRS. “Already, several leaders are in touch with us,” Laxman said.

The BJP president indicated that his party would take up agitations on people’s issues and also counter the high-handed attitude of TRS activists. He also strongly opposed any attempt by the TRS leadership to give leader of opposition status to the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen in the assembly.

Compared to the TRS, the YSRC in Andhra Pradesh is comfortably placed in so far as its relationship with the BJP is concerned. Jagan Reddy already met the Prime Minister twice and is going to meet him again on Saturday on the occasion of the Niti Aayog meeting. PM Modi assured of all possible help to the state. The BJP is also understood to have offered the deputy speaker’s post in the Lok Sabha to the YSRC.

On Saturday, Jagan Reddy will address the YSRC parliamentary party meeting in New Delhi to discuss the strategy to be followed in the House. “We shall anyway continue to ask for special category status for AP, besides release of pending funds to complete the ongoing projects,” a party leader said.