‘KCR courts Akhilesh not to be part of Opposition unity bid’

With Akhilesh Yadav visiting Telangana Chief Minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) supremo K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) in Hyderabad recently, sources within Samajwadi Party (SP) have claimed that the SP boss was invited by KCR to discuss national politics and also to “influence” him (Akhilesh Yadav) not to tie up with Congress.
Leaders in SP assume that there could have been a discourse on national politics and particularly on Congress. For. if the grand old party is given space for Lok Sabha elections and later it dethrones the BJP from power, then the Congress would start spreading its political network, and regional parties would be the “victims”. An SP leader said, “The Congress is ruling several states, but regional players only have their own states and it becomes a matter of survival for them to keep themselves relevant in the state. If we give space to Congress, maybe we can help them grow in national elections, but then they will come for us in
Assembly elections which will not only reduce our political standing in the state but also make our future grim. The Congress is growing right now and it would be at the cost of regional parties. That is where all the regional parties are cautious.”
However, sources in the BRS suggest that Akhilesh Yadav had come by himself to invite the BRS chief to join the Opposition unity efforts. A political analyst said, “If Akhilesh had come to KCR just to invite him to join Opposition unity efforts, there would have been coordination among the Opposition leaders and Rahul Gandhi would not have given the statement against the BRS just a day before, as they would have been expecting the Telangana-based party to join the Opposition camp. But that didn’t happen and there was a statement against the ruling party in the state (Telangana) that signals either there was no coordination between the Opposition parties (Congress and Samajwadi Party), or there is more probability that KCR had invited Akhilesh to discuss things related to national politics.”
Rahul Gandhi in his rally in Khammam had said, “In Telangana, it is a fight between the Congress and the BJP’s B team, BRS. Like we defeated the BJP in Karnataka, similarly, we’ll defeat their B team in Telangana. During the Opposition meeting in Delhi, we made it clear to the Opposition that Congress would not join the meeting if TRS (now BRS) was part of it. We can never make a settlement with the BJP’s B team.”
However, JDU leaders claim that KCR is not willing to join the Opposition ranks due to the upcoming Assembly elections where Congress is the main Opposition player in Telangana. A political observer added, “If he is seen with the Congress, BJP will say that both the parties are on the same table, which will help the saffron camp in gaining votes. BRS’ main opposition in the state is Congress, they want to pull votes against them. Else if they ally with Congress at the national level, there is less possibility that they will be able to take votes against the Congress.”