Known for his mercurial temperament and unpredictable ways, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president K Chandrasekhar Rao is sending out conflicting signals to the UPA leadership on his future relationship with the ruling party.
By frequently changing his stance vis-a-vis his party's equation with the Congress, KCR is keeping the ruling party on tenterhooks.
After giving indications that TRS will not merge with Congress but will fight the coming elections in 2014 on its own, the Pink Panther is now saying that the merger proposal is very much on the table.
The change in the tone came after he had a one-on-one meeting with the Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde in Delhi where he is believed to have extracted certain assurances from the veteran Congress leader.
"The talk of merger will come after the Telangana bill is passed by the Parliament," KCR said.
However, only a couple of days earlier, he had told his party leaders to be prepared to fight the poll alone without any alliance with the Congress.
Apparently, KCR is using the merger plan as a bargaining tool with the Congress.
It is said that KCR has presented a long wish list to the Congress for the merger plan to be successful.
They include plum posts for him and his family members. It is for this reason that he has been making tantalizing statements on TRS' merger with the Congress.
One day, he says that TRS has a responsibility to play a key role in "rebuilding the Telangana state" and the other day he talks positively about the merger.
KCR, who is known for hard bargaining, sounded a warning when he said “If Telangana with no riders is made a reality, then we will re-think of merger.”
The TRS chief said that nothing short of Telangana state with 10 districts including Hyderabad is acceptable to the people of Telangana.
The TRS supremo is also not ready to give the credit to the Congress for realization of the Telangana statehood dream.
According to him, the Congress had no option but concede Telangana after a 1,000 people committed suicide and he put the blame squarely on Congress itself for it. Without any doubt, KCR is turning out to be a slippery customer for the Congress.
