Hyderabad: TRS president and Telangana state Chief Minister K. Chandra-sekhar Rao appeared to have missed a great opportunity to push his agenda of “qualitative change” in politics via the Federal Front before several national leaders by skipping the swearing in ceremony of JD(S) leader H.D. Kuma-raswamy as Karnataka Chief Minister at Bengaluru on Wednesday.
Mr Rao had met Mr Kumaraswamy on Tuesday and returned home. In the absence of Mr Rao, AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu stole the limelight. Despite his anti-Congress stand Mr Naidu did not hesitate to share the dais with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and AICC president Rahul Gandhi.
Mr Naidu said that in the interest of the nation he would work with the JD(S) in future. Mr Naidu and JD(S) president and former PM H.D. Deve Gowda are allies of yore, having worked together in the mid-nineties.
Mr Rao’s agenda is to from a front with like-minded regional parties. Several regional party leaders attended Mr Kumaraswamy’s oath-taking ceremony, including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and UP former CM Akhilesh Yadav who had held discussions with Mr Rao on the formation of a new front.
Apart from them, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, BSP president and former UP CM Mayawati, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav and others also attended.
If Mr Rao had attended, he would have got an opportunity to discuss his plans with these leaders. It is significant to note that Ms Banerjee, who had discussed the Federal Front with Mr Rao, reportedly asked Mr Naidu to form a new front with regional parties to fight with BJP.
An interesting point was that those who attended the oath-taking ceremony of Mr Kumaraswamy are all aligned against the BJP.
