Key leaders skip meeting

K Venkateshwarlu
Hyderabad

Although billed as Bharat Rashtra Samiti’s ‘show of might’, many prominent leaders, believed to have been specially invited, abstained from the high-profile meeting at Khammam on Wednesday. The prominent leaders who skipped the rally include Karnataka former chief minister Kumaraswamy, cine actor Prakash Raj, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav,

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemanth Soren, Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikayat, and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) founder and president and MP from Tholkappiyan Thirumavalavan. These are leaders who had extended their support to KCR from the beginning of BRS’ formation.

JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy could not attend the BRS meet reportedly due to his ongoing Pancharatna Rath Yatra (statewide tour) in Karnataka, according to his office.
However, TPCC president A Revanth Reddy thinks there is more to it than meets the eye. He sought to know from KCR whether it was not true that he had offered Rs.500 crore to lure a key Congress leader of Karnataka state.

According to Revanth, reports suggest that the Congress party would win from Bellary to Raichur with a narrow margin in about 25-30 seats. KCR had bargained with a Karnataka Congress leader to work for the defeat of the Congress party in those 25 to 30 seats, he alleged. He offered to provide evidence for his statements.

Revanth Reddy claimed that Kumaraswamy, who knew these facts, chose to skip the BRS meeting today.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar ducked a question on Wednesday about his absence at the Khammam rally called by KCR. “What would you say on it,” Nitish Kumar said with a cryptic smile. Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, finance minister of Bihar, said: “If we are here, then how could you say all opposition parties are going for the rally in Telangana?”
“I want to say that everyone is making efforts and if the efforts are honest, BJP will not come to power in 2024,” Chaudhary said.

Earlier, Nitish Kumar said that after the Samadhan Yatra, he would attend the budget session of the Bihar Vidhan Sabha and then work on opposition unity in the country.
Although KCR visited Bihar in September 2022, he did not give proper answers on the opposition prime ministerial candidates. The leaders of JD(U) and RJD were projecting Nitish Kumar as PM face of opposition for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

KCR was then asked several times, but he had not given a clear-cut answer on it. He merely said that opposition leaders would sit together to decide on the prime ministerial candidate of the opposition parties.