KCR: Apart from temple-run by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, the present visit of the CM to Tamil Nadu seems to have a political purpose as well! After KCR and family’s visit to Srirangam to offer prayers to the temple, they have halted in Chennai. The purpose is to bring alive KCR’s dream of restarting the process of Federal Front, which will be a national alternative to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress.
KCR
The Telangana CM had initiated the idea of Federal Front in 2018. The idea of this political front was culmination of different regional parties, which are non-BJP and Congress and take on these people in the General Elections. In fact KCR made visits to Bangalore for meeting Kumaraswamy, Chennai to meet MK Stalin, Kolkata for Mamata Banerjee, and Bhubaneshwar for Naveen Patnaik; later he had even hosted Akilesh Yadav in Hyderabad. But unfortunately, the Federal Front idea didn’t take-off, because everyone was still sailing with Congress and none of the political leaders believed that it was possible to form a national alternative front to take on the might of BJP without the support of Congress.
Now once again, KCR seems to be hinting at forming the Federal Front and as part of this exercise, he is meeting Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin in Chennai today. KCR and Stalin have maintained good relations over the last few years, after their meeting during 2018. But with Stalin and his party DMK having an alliance with Congress, he didn’t walk with KCR during the 2019 General elections. Now with equations changing, KCR hopes to have a better reception for his initiative.
Meanwhile, TRS MLC Palle Rajeshwar Reddy said that KCR will join hands with like-minded parties and forces to help in removing the BJP at the centre. “People do not need this anti-farmer government. The TRS will extend support to the BJP in Parliament only if the Union government helps the farmers in buying the paddy. We will support a government that favours paddy cultivation in Telangana,” he observed.
On the other hand, TRS is trying to play down the meeting between KCR and Stalin today. A senior leader from the party said, “KCR will seek DMK’s support with regards to paddy procurement policy in southern states as well as on other issues against Prime Minister Narendra Modi government.”
But TRS working president KT Rama Rao has his own agenda set for Chennai. He has announced that he would visit TN to study organisational structure of the DMK, with an eye on replicating it in Telangana.