TRS adopts strident anti-BJP line as prelude to BRS avatar

Hyderabad: The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the party formed with a dream and aspirations of four crore people of Telangana two decades ago, started its new journey as Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in the year 2022.

The party had an eventful year starting with various programmes and ending on a high note by winning the Munugodu bye election where it snatched a sitting seat from Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, who had joined BJP.

The party leadership gave a call for the grand celebrations on completion of paying Rs 50,000 crore into the bank accounts of farmers under Dalit Bandhu scheme during January. During this time, former MP K Kavitha entered into the council from Nizamabad LAC. During January, the TRS leaders were planning to campaign in Uttar Pradesh against BJP but dropped their plans after Chief Minister decided against this.

There were some adverse reports against some of the party leaders. Some of the TRS MLAs faced allegations of harassments. Vanama Raghava, the son of MLA Vanama Venkateshwar Rao was suspended from the party after allegations of harassment of a family, which committed suicide.

The party leaders raised their voice against the Centre on the alleged plans of the Union government to privatise Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL). The leaders said that the State government will not allow SCCL to be privatised.

After a long wait, the Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao changed the district heads giving importance to the MLAs and MLCs making them district presidents of the party. The TRS chief calls the MPs to fight against the Centre on discrimination towards Telangana after disappointing budget.

The party leaders started projecting CM KCR as 'Desh ka Neta' on the occasion of his birthday on February 17 and demanded him to take lead in the national politics.

There were differences between the CMO and Raj Bhavan as the party leaders alleged that the BJP was colouring Raj Bhavan Saffron. The relations between the chief minister and the Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan became sore. The CM skipped several invitations from the Governor.

The TRS leaders took to streets on the procurement of paddy issue. The Chief Minister sat on dharna both at Indira Park in Hyderabad and also in New Delhi in April.

The party adopted a resolution during its Formation Day plenary authorising KCR to play a key role in the national politics. The TRS working president KT Rama Rao also intensified his attacks on the Central government targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling him a Nalayak Pradhan Mantri, and Amit Shah as lying Badshah and also dared them to dissolve Lok Sabha and go for early polls. Kavitha also joined and commented that the rule by BJP was like 'Aath Saal Janta Behal'.

The TRS chief hinted about the national party BRS during a press conference in July. Some of the Party MLAs started hosting Praja Darbars to solve the issues of the people in their constituencies. The MPs continued their protest in Parliament and three MPs were suspended for a week as they were demanding discussion on price rise, inflation, GST and other issues.

The year saw a high intensity bye election where the TRS was victorious. The TRS candidate K Prabhakar Reddy defeated sitting MLA, the BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy in Munugodu. Entire TRS machinery was in Munugodu for the bypoll. The victory of the party in the bypoll made TRS leaders jubilant. There was a poaching effort where four TRS MLAs were approached by three persons allegedly from BJP offering them Crores of Rupees for leaving TRS and joining BJP during November.