Politics is the art of the possible and often a circus without a ring. The formal start of functioning of a new political entity, the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) of Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao in the national capital on Thursday is by no means an earth-shaking event. One who does not have a national appeal, like Rao, can dare to start a national party on the strength of his money power. Unlike Rao, Mamata Banerjee had acquired individual clout at the national level before she sought a pan-India role. She was a Union Minister too. Sans these, Rao has stated he is aiming at a “top job” in Delhi after the next polls. With this end in view, he’s scouting around and establishing linkages with regional party leaders.
The age of ideology is a thing of the past. Showmanship has become a prerequisite to win elections and yet the people are clever too. Rao is no businessman and his family had modest means. Today, after being chief minister of the Telangana state that he helped create by a bifurcation of the undivided Andhra Pradesh in 2014, it’s virtually a family rule there. His son is the second-in-command, his nephew the third most important minister in government and daughter a top party and governmental functionary even after her humiliating defeat in the last Lok Sabha elections. Allegations are that the family is today sitting plum on huge stocks of wealth. The political strategy he had adopted was to create vote banks and make a success out of it mainly as his own community formed only four per cent of the state’s population. After the farmers’ successful agitation against the farm reform laws of the Centre in the northern states – not in the South where there was not even a whimper of it – he saw another opportunity. He is positioning himself as the “farmer leader” of the nation. Out of the blue, he had sent cheques to the families of the farmers who lost their lives during the farmers’ agitation in Punjab, Haryana etc. And now comes his national political foray.
Speculations are also that Rao wants to create “space” for his son as the next CM in Telangana while he sought a “top post” in Delhi after the next parliament polls — in order for the family to have the best of both worlds. Curiously, another Telugu pretender who made such a push before the last Lok Sabha polls, Chandrababu Naidu, had lost the CM’s post in Andhra Pradesh and is sulking after the YSRC Party came from behind and seized power.
