Will KCR’s Return Give Mileage to BRS?

BRS president and former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao would address the party executive leaders at Telangana Bhavan on Sunday. The BRS party cadre is expecting the party chief’s powerful speech would invigorate the party leaders and also guide them towards their goals.

After having failed to clinch victory in the 2023 Assembly elections, KCR has seldom come into the public or addressed any public meetings. Soon after the defeat, KCR became bed-ridden and was hospitalized after he slipped in the bathroom at his Erravelli farmhouse. He suffered a left hip fracture due to the fall.

With KCR remaining confined indoors, his son and former minister K.T. Rama Rao took up the reigns of the party. KTR could not strike back at Chief Minister Revanth Reddy when he tore into the father-son duo for the rampant corruption in Kaleshwaram project.

In this situation, KCR’s meeting is supposed to invigorate the party leaders and also keep the flock together till the next Assembly elections.

Despite being the Opposition leader, KCR did not attend the discussion on various key issues like his brainchild Kaleshwaram project and various other irrigation projects on rivers Krishna and Godavari, though invited by Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy. The CM accused KCR of drawing Rs 65 lakh salary as the Opposition leader for the last 16 months but failing to set foot in the Assembly at least once.

When KCR claimed that the Congress government had stalled several key welfare schemes, Revanth challenged the BRS chief to an open debate on several initiatives like Rythu Bharosa, SC sub-categorisation, fee reimbursement, Kalyana Lakshmi-Shaadi Mbubarak, caste census, free bus travel for women and free power to agriculture.

Given the party’s moderate performance in panchayat polls and dwindling support from the public, KCR could have felt the need to speak to the party leaders, to motivate and stimulate them with his powerful and effective speech in the Telangana dialect.