Several leaders from like-minded parties may attend the opening event of the office, expected in early June.
Telangana Chief Minister and TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who has been vigorously working to put in place a federal front of non-BJP and non-Congress parties before next year’s general elections, will be opening an office for his front at 23, Tuglak Road in New Delhi by early June.
Currently, the sprawling bungalow in Lutyens’ Delhi has been allotted to the CM and his daughter, K. Kavitha, a member of the Lok Sabha. The inauguration of the federal front office in the national capital is expected to give momentum to KCR’s efforts for a non-Congress, non-BJP front.
TRS Parliamentary Party leader A.P. Jithender Reddy told The Sunday Guardian: “We are planning to organise the office opening event on a big scale as the CM intends to invite all like-minded parties and leaders to the event.”
The idea to set up an office in Delhi has sprung after KCR’s back to back meetings with leaders of DMK and Samajwadi Party this week. KCR went to Chennai to meet DMK leaders M. Karunanidhi, his son and party executive president M.K. Stalin and MP Kanimozhi on Monday. Presently, the DMK is in an alliance with the Congress, but Stalin has expressed interest in KCR’s front.
On 2 May, SP leader and former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav came to Hyderabad in a chartered flight and held a four-hour long discussion with KCR. Yadav, before returning to Lucknow, told the media that he would meet KCR several times in the coming months and would like to bring a “change in national politics”.
SP had had an alliance with the Congress in last year’s UP elections and Yadav is in touch with Congress president Rahul Gandhi. But, still, he responded positively to KCR’s son and IT Minister KT Rama Rao’s invitation to come to Hyderabad.
TRS seniors are of the view that the CM’s insistence with meetings with leaders who have some sort of understanding with the Congress indicates his confidence of floating a coalition which would throw up a viable alternative ahead of the general elections expectedto be scheduled in early 2019.
“We know that Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren have had some kind of relationship with Congress, but when KCR explained to them the need to build a good governance oriented national alternative, exclusing both the BJP and the Congress, they acknowledged the importance of his idea,” said K. Keshav Rao, TRS MP.
KCR has also met JD (S) leader and former PM Deve Gowda last month and held informal talks with CPI (M) top leaders when they called on him to seek his state government’s support to their party congress Hyderabad last week. If Gowda patted on the back of KCR for his front efforts, the Left leaders promised to study the proposal.
KCR would be visiting Bhubaneswar later this month to meet Orissa CM Naveen Patnaik to discuss about the front formation. Sources close to KCR said that KCR would soon be visiting Mumbai to meet Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray and NCP leader Sharad Pawar. KCR has got calls from some Maharashtra MPs, belonging to smaller parties, who have assured him of their support. TRS MPs in Delhi are trying to get an appointment with BSP leader Mayawati.
KCR is planning to hold a seminar or a round-table conference with different parties and experts at the time of the office inauguration in New Delhi. Leaders of national stature, like Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav, Stalin, Gowda are expected to attend the event. “The front office opening in Delhi will be a major political event this year,” said TRS MLC Palla Rajeswar Reddy.
The TRS leadership is readying to set up a resources centre at the federal front office in Delhi where anyone who wants to study the political alternatives in the country would be provided with enough data and information on how the country had lagged behind on all fronts since Independence.