Bharat Rashtra Samithi president and Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s primary objective is to come back to power for the third consecutive time in the state by scoring a hattrick in the state assembly elections slated for this year end.
For this, he has to appease mainly two major caste groups in Telangana – Reddys and Munnuru Kapus, who are in substantial numbers. While Reddys are angry with KCR and are hell-bent on defeating the BRS in the next elections, Munnuru Kapus are also terribly upset with him for being denied proper share in power in the state.
So, KCR has first begun focussing on wooing Kapus. On Sunday, prominent leaders of Munnuru Kapu had a meeting in Hyderabad and discussed their issues, besides drawing their political strategy for the coming elections. Majority of these leaders have reportedly expressed their support to the BRS, if the party gives sufficient representation in the assembly elections.
At the same time, the BRS president came up with a strategy to bring pressure on Kapu community through power star Pawan Kalyan. He called some senior Kapu leaders to his Pragati Bhavan residence on Sunday for a meeting to work out his strategy.
Apart from BRS Andhra Pradesh unit president Thota Chandrasekhar, former Tamil Nadu chief secretary Rammohan Rao, retired civil servants P V Rao, Rangisetty Manga Babu and Lakshmikantham, besides other retired officials, industrialists, real estate dealers and others.
While conceding most of their demands such as allotment of five acres of land and Rs 10 crore grant for construction of Kapu Bhavan in Hyderabad, KCR reportedly asked them to prevail upon Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan to extend support to the BRS in Telangana and give a call to 25 lakh Kapu voters to vote for his party.
At the same, the BRS chief reportedly told them that he would bear the entire election expenditure of Pawan Kalyan and Jana Sena in Andhra Pradesh, provided he contests the elections independently without having any alliance with the BJP or the TDP.
This would be a double-benefit for KCR. If Pawan agrees to his request, it would benefit the BRS in Telangana; and at the same time, it would help his friend YSR Congress party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy to come to power again in AP due to splitting of anti-establishment votes.
“It would also help Jana Sena emerge as a major political force in Andhra Pradesh and no surprise, he might even become the leader of the opposition in Andhra assembly,” a source said.
It is not immediately known what the response of the Kapu leaders was to KCR’s proposal. If Pawan listens to them, it would be a double benefit to KCR!
