If one were to look at the way TRS president and CM K Chandrasekhar Rao’s latest diatribe against BJP and PM Narendra Modi, one would draw a parallel with TDP president and former Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu.
Naidu, who maintained friendly relations with the BJP and the Narendra Modi government till 2018, suddenly changed his stand and came out of the National Democratic Alliance, snapping ties with the BJP.
He started attacking Modi in strongest words and began mobilising anti-BJP forces to form a grand alliance, including the Congress party.
He used choicest epithets against Modi those days and gave a call to the people to throw the BJP into Bay of Bengal.
But Naidu’s strategy proved entirely wrong and BJP returned to power at the Centre with a huge mandate and Modi again became the Prime Minister.
And it has proved costly for Naidu, as the TDP lost power in the state and ended up with just three MP seats in Lok Sabha. Naidu’s long political innings has virtually come to an end.
Now, KCR too appears be in the same situation.
All these days, he had been maintaining strong equations with the Centre and Modi. But after the Huzurabad by-elections, KCR stepped up attack on Modi and has been abusing the latter with strong words.
Like Naidu, the TRS president, too, has started mobilising the anti-BJP forces with an aim to dethrone Modi. And he, too, has called for driving away the Modi government from power at the Centre.
This led to the talk that KCR, too, might face the same situation in Telangana, as Naidu had faced in AP in 2019. But analysts have a different argument.
According to an analyst, there is a stark difference between the two situations – one faced by Naidu in 2019 and KCR in the coming years.
“If KCR is able to dethrone Modi, he will emerge as a strong national leader. But if he cannot, he is nothing to lose in the state,” he argued.
Reason is simple: Naidu had to fight with the YSR Congress party in Andhra Pradesh, where the BJP is not a force. There, the BJP has indirectly favoured the YSRC and it made things easy for Jagan Mohan Reddy to defeat the TDP.
In Telangana, there is no such situation, as there is no other strong regional party like YSRC here. It has to fight with the BJP and the Congress.
The growth of the BJP will only adversely affect the Congress and in the process, the anti-establishment votes would split, which would only help the TRS.
“All said and done, the BJP is no strong force in Telangana to come to power independently. So is the Congress. Under any circumstances, the BJP and the Congress cannot come together. Even if they succeed in getting the number of seats of the TRS, the latter will always have the support of the MIM to retain power, as has happened in GHMC elections,” the analyst pointed out.
So, KCR won’t have to meet the same fate Naidu had faced in AP in 2019!
