I-PAC likely to work for TRS in Telangana

New Delhi: Political campaigning entity Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) is in advanced stage of talks to handle the political campaign of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) for the 2023 December scheduled Telangana polls.
Sources told The Sunday Guardian that senior functionaries of the I-PAC, who had successfully helped the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress retail power in the May 2021 polls, have had multiple meetings with TRS chief and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao regarding this expected tie-up. The TRS had won 9 of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the 2019 polls and 88 of the 119 Assembly seats in the 2018 December assembly elections. I-PAC and TRS had tried to stitch up an agreement before the 2018 polls too, but it did not fructify.
Sources said that Rao’s son, Kalvakuntla Taraka Rama Rao or KTR, 45, who is also a minister in the state cabinet and working president of the party, is more open to the prospect of engaging I-PAC given the likely set of new challenge that the party is going to face from the BJP which has been slowly but steadily increasing its presence in the state.
KCR has time and again indicated his ambition to emerge as a national leader by ignoring regional leaders, but attacking the Prime Minister on various issues repeatedly and hence a service agreement with I-PAC would help him emerge as a national level given the perceived expertise of I-PAC in marketing regional leaders as national leaders as it has attempted in the past with Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal.
KCR, who started with the Congress, was a founder-member of the Telugu Desam along with N.T. Rama Rao and has served as a state minister two times in Andhra Pradesh.
KCR later went on to found his own party and was among the main faces who raised his voice for the separate state of Telangana. He has also served as a Union minister in the UPA (2004-2006) and is known for having strong networking skills and maintaining a warm relationship with opposition leaders like Mamata Banerjee, Sharad Pawar, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Shibu Soren and Lalu Yadav.
All these factors, political observers believe, make KCR a strong contender for playing a pivotal role in the 2024 general elections, especially if none of the big two parties—BJP and Congress—are able to secure enough seats to form a government on their own.
If the service agreement between the TRS and I-PAC materialises, KCR would follow the footsteps of Banerjee, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief who have worked or are working with I-PAC to become a more “pan-India” face.