Hyderabad: The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leadership, which has been focusing on national politics and expanding the party to other states since October last year, has decided to go slow with its plans. It will now pay attention to the Assembly elections in Telangana state after the Congress won Karnataka elections decisively.
Though BRS working president and minister K.T. Rama Rao claimed that the Karnataka election results will not have any bearing on Telangana state, the overwhelming victory of the Congress in that state appears to have compelled the BRS to don its thinking cap with regard to its strategy in Telangana Assembly elections in the state are scheduled to take place by December.
BRS sources said the party leadership now wants to focus on retaining power for a third term in the state. While the BRS leadership seeks to solely focus on Maharashtra for the time being and contest local body elections there, it also wants to prevent disgruntled BRS leaders from defecting to the Congress and stop its rise in Telangana state after the spectacular victory in Karnataka.
The party leadership plans to focus on south districts in Telangana state, especially undivided Ranga Reddy, Medak, and Mahbubnagar, that share borders with Karnataka, sources said. People in these districts have connections in Karnataka. The party believes that the Karnataka results might influence voters in these districts.
BRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao has decided to keep the government and the party machinery busy with public outreach activities in June to mark the 10th year of formation of the Telangana state. The idea is to reach out to the people and explain to them about the achievements of BRS government over the last nine years in terms of welfare schemes and development programmes.
While officials of all the departments were asked to prepare progress cards of the last nine years, the ministers, BRS MLAs, MLCs, MPs from the state, district and Assembly constituency-level leaders to sarpanches at village-level were asked to take these reports to the people and garner their support for the party for upcoming Assembly polls.
The departments were also asked to prepare documentaries on the achievements of BRS government and screen them in cinema theatres, TVs, and other media from village-level to state-level. The CM held a review meeting on Saturday to apprise officials and ministers on how to prepare progress reports department-wise and how to ensure that they reach the people.
