An Assembly win will let K. Chandrashekhar Rao’s BRS launch itself in the 2024 general elections during which it plans to contest in multiple states.
NEW DELHI: The newly branded Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) is banking on Bhim Rao Ambedkar, among its other pro-Dalit policies, to return to power in the Telangana Assembly elections that are scheduled for this year.
The win in the Assembly elections, party strategists believe, will pave the way for the BRS, which was till late last year known as Telangana Rashtra Samithi, to launch itself in a confident manner in the May 2024 general elections in which the BRS plans to contest across multiple states.
On 14 April, BRS chief and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao will unveil a 125-feet statue of Ambedkar at Hyderabad. The foundation stone of the said statue, which will be the tallest statue in the country of the Dalit leader, built across 11.5 acre land that also has a photo gallery and cinema theatre, was laid on 14 April 2016.
Incidentally, the sculptor of the said statue, Ram Vanji Sutar, had also designed the Statue of Unity of Sardar Patel in Kevada, Gujarat. The inauguration event—which will see flowers being showered on the statue from helicopters, a huge garland of rose and other flowers being put on the statue, Buddhist monks reciting hymns, mandatory presence of state government officials and atleast 300 people from each of the 119 Assembly constituency being brought to Hyderabad through the 750 state transport buses—is being personally monitored by KCR.
The three-hour event, in which the chief guest will be Prakash Yashwant Ambedkar, the grandson of B.R. Ambedkar, is expected to see the participation of at least 1 lakh people, making it one of the biggest Ambedkar events that the state has ever seen.
Two weeks after this event, KCR will be inaugurating the new secretariat building on 30 April, which has been named as “Dr B.R. Ambedkar Telangana Secretariat”. This too will be widely publicized across the state.
In August 2021, KCR had launched the Dalit Bandhu scheme under which a one-time capital assistance of Rs.10 lakh per SC family is provided for all SC families as 100% grant / subsidy to establish a suitable income generating scheme as per their choice (without bank loan linkage).
KCR, who is regarded for his street smart ways of doing politics, while focusing on executing and inaugurating these two recent projects and the Dalit Bandhu scheme, is looking to attract the about 18.5% voters of the state who belong to the Scheduled Caste (SC) community and revere Ambedkar. With the 12% Muslim voters veering towards the BRS, KCR’s advisors claim that they will not face much difficulty in coming back to power if these two blocks decide to vote for him.
His primary political competitor in the state, the Congress, they claim, is not in a position to go beyond the 19 seats that it got in the last election. Much of the anti-BRS vote is likely to be pocketed by the BJP, but still, it will not be in a position to form the government.
The win in the Assembly elections, according to a party functionary, had become even more important for KCR as he eyes emerging as a national political entity after the 2024 general elections and maybe a possible “consensus” Prime Minister candidate in case no political parties or alliance gets a clear alliance.
“There are 17 Lok Sabha seats in the state, and in 2019, the party has won 9 of them. This was the peak of the Modi wave and now the situation in May 2024 will be different. Also, BRS will be giving tickets to candidates in other parts of the country. A loss in Telangana will dent his national ambitions and his bid to emerge as a strong anti-BJP force substantially,” a government functionary close to the CM told The Sunday Guardian.