KCR'S GRAND AMBITION

The BRS chief is hoping to win a third term for his party in Telangana even as he has one eye on the throne in Delhi. Is it just empty rhetoric or does the CM have a clear plan?

- AMARNATH K. MENON

THE GOAL SOUNDS FAR-FETCHED, even a pipe dream one could say, but Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) supremo K. Chandrashekar Rao would have you believe that it's within his sights. "In the coming 2024 parliamentary polls, the next government is ours, ours and ours," KCR, as he is popularly known, declared after inaugurating a 125-foot-tall statue of Dr B.R. Ambedkar in Hyderabad on April 14. Having already rechristened the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which catapulted him to power, the BRS in October last year, the Telangana chief minister is beginning to act on his ambitious 'Double 100' plan for a pan-India presence. The goal is for the BRS to first win 100 of the 119 seats in the state assembly election due in November this year, and then corner 100 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats in the next general election in mid-2024.

The task at hand looks daunting, considering the challenge the third-term hopeful BRS faces from both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at home. In its earlier avatar as TRS, it had won 88, or 74 per cent, of the assembly seats in 2018, up from 63 when it first came to power in the newly created state in 2014. Its Lok Sabha performance has been less impressive -victory in nine, or just over parliamentary in the state in 2019, 50 per cent, of the 17 constituencies two less than its 2014 tally of 11. The target of 100, thus, seems a bit of a stretch, especially after the party leaders have ruled out a pre-poll alliance.

That the BRS is recognised as a state party only in Telangana compounds the problem as its candidates in other states, including Andhra Pradesh, will have to opt for free symbols instead of the party's 'car' symbol.