Battered BRS pines for DMK model

Hyderabad: The BRS chief, K Chandrashekar Rao, is keen to follow the DMK model in an attempt to strengthen the party. He has sent a team of leaders to study the organisational structure and find reasons behind loyalty to the party for two-three generations.

After the Assembly and Lok Sabha debacles, KCR is focusing on strengthening the party by taking various measures to provide a proper structure with affiliated units. There have been accusations against the BRS chief that he has not focused on the party while in power for the last decade. There were no committees; all powers were vested with the MLAs in the constituency. Though there were district presidents, the main power centre was the local MLA; at some places, the MLAs were made district presidents. With the party losing power and several MLAs getting defeated, there is a vacuum in leadership in districts, felt a senior party leader.

The leader said the party chief would take a call on its structure. Rao has asked senior leaders to visit Tamil Nadu before the party is likely to have State and district committees by appointing general secretaries and secretaries and to have affiliated units like trade unions and other community wings. This would help the party in strengthening and keeping the leaders intact and avoiding desertions, the leader said.

In the past, the BRS had tried to study the model of the Dravidian parties, like DMK and AIADMK, which have made national parties look like regional parties in the State. Now, the party leaders, including former MLA B Suman, former corporation chairman Anjaneya Goud, and Ravindar Reddy, have visited Chennai.

Suman said they visited the DMK office, ‘Anna Arivalayam’, in Chennai on Monday and interacted with the DMK leaders, mainly the organisation secretary, ex-MP RS Bharati, and ex-MLA Shekhar, about the party’s organisational structure and its activities.

A senior BRS leader pointed out that during the BRS regime, when a couple of DMK leaders came to Hyderabad to seek party support for NEET, they said theirs was the fourth generation in the party. The party leadership wanted to see how the activists had associated themselves with the party for generations, he said.