BRS gears up for Lok Sabha elections
KTR held a meeting of all the party leaders and asked them to take up the responsibility of rejuvenating the party cadre in their respective constituencies
Setting aside the recent debacle in the Telangana assembly elections, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leadership began preparations for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in the state to rejuvenate the party leaders and cadre.
While BRS president and former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao is recuperating from the hip replacement surgery he had undergone in the first week of December, his son and party working president KT Rama Rao has started holding a series of meetings with party leaders to gear them up for the challenge in the Lok Sabha elections, a senior BRS leader familiar with the development said on Tuesday.
On Monday, KTR held a meeting of all the party leaders, including sitting MLAs and defeated MLAs in the recent assembly elections at Telangana Bhavan and asked them to take up the responsibility of rejuvenating the party cadre in their respective constituencies and conducting a comprehensive review of the party position.
“The exercise will begin on January 3 and conclude by January 26. Since there is a possibility of announcing the schedule for the Lok Sabha elections in the last week of February or first week of March, we should be ready with the list of candidates and strategy for facing the elections,” the party leader, quoting KTR, said.
KTR told the meeting that all the party candidates who lost the elections would continue as in-charges of their respective constituencies. “They should do micro-analyse of the reasons for their loss in the assembly elections and work out action plans to secure the majority of the party in the Lok Sabha elections,” he said.
To begin with, KTR conducted a review of the party performance in the assembly segments falling under Chevella parliamentary constituency. While the party had won in four assembly segments, the Congress won three assembly seats.
While announcing that sitting MP G Ranjith Reddy would be the BRS candidate from Chevella in the next Lok Sabha elections as well, KTR told the party leaders to ensure that the party retained the seat with a thumping margin. “What we have received in the recent assembly elections is a temporary setback. There is nobody in the opposition who can match up to the stature of KCR in any state. We shall put this narrative strongly into the people, while exposing the hollow promises of the Congress,” the BRS working president told the party leaders.
The party leader quoted above said that there was a talk in the party on whether KCR would contest the Lok Sabha elections. “Though there was no such indication from KTR or any other top leader, there is a possibility that the BRS president might contest from Medak parliamentary constituency in 2024, which he had represented in 2004. But the proposal is still in its initial stage,” he said.
At present, the BRS has nine seats in Lok Sabha, out of 17 from Telangana. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has four MPs, the Congress three and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has the remaining one seat.
