Prashant Kishor Congress plan puts TRS in a bind

Hyderabad: Will poll strategist Prashant Kishor succeed in making TRS agree to enter into an alliance with the Congress party during the next Lok Sabha elections? The political strategist, who heads the I-PAC, has been making all-out efforts in this direction for the past two days. He was a guest of TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao at Pragathi Bhavan. Both are said to have had detailed discussions on the political situation.

Though PK has been strongly advocating for an alliance with Congress, the party which he may join soon, KCR seems to be having serious reservations on this issue. In fact, KTR in an interview stated that KCR was a better strategist than anyone else and that PK did not come from the sky or some other planet. TRS will make use of the reports PK gives and they will be supplementary to party strategies. TRS will not blindly follow what he says. He also felt the Congress party was nowhere on the political map so there was no possibility of sailing with them. This indicates the line of thinking of the party at least for now. Prashant Kishor apparently said to KCR that if TRS joins the alliance led by Congress along with DMK, JMM, Shiv Sena it would help in reviving the Congress led UPA and can push BJP out of power and put an end to the vindictive politics. He is also said to have given a detailed analysis on the possible political scenario in future if a united alternative to BJP can become a reality. But for now the TRS does not seem to be inclined to have any alliance with Congress.

KCR is of the opinion that TRS was still a very strong party despite some anti-incumbency factor which is a natural phenomena with any party that has been in power for two terms. Even Modi will have to face a serious anti-incumbency problem, he feels.

Meanwhile, the I-PAC is said to have informed KCR in its first ground report that it should replace at least 50 sitting MLAs as they had become unpopular with the local people due to various factors. The report also recommended that the pink party has to go deeper into people and convince them about various schemes launched by the government and its success rate.