Telangana Political Landscape: LS Election Relevance

Telangana election updates

The decline of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in the Lok Sabha polls has been incredibly dramatic in the little over four months since it seemed to be in a winning position for months leading up to the November 2023 Telangana Assembly elections, causing its chief K Chandrashekar Rao to nurture national ambitions. The party that governed Telangana for a decade until losing power in the recent Assembly polls will only become more discredited after Friday's arrest of KCR's daughter K Kavitha in the Delhi excise policy case, which was long anticipated.

Still, the BRS appeared to have a significant lead over its Telangana rivals as late as August of last year. This was after rebranding from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, which KCR had hoped would unite the opposition behind him.

According to an ex-spokesperson for the Telangana Congress, multiple BRS leaders were in communication to switch parties, but the Congress was being cautious. The high command will make a decision closer to the Lok Sabha Elections, so we will wait and watch, he said. In the last Thursday statement, the Congress leader predicted that the party's goal of 14 or more of the state's 17 Lok Sabha seats would be significantly aided by the inflow of BRS leaders.

The fact that the BJP, rapidly expanding in Telangana, is "poaching" BRS leaders which is a source of concern for KCR. The BJP is relying heavily on the Ram Temple consecration to increase its tally. It won four seats in the Lok Sabha in 2019 from Telangana.

Telangana political scenario

By referring to the departing party leaders as "power hungry," the BRS downplays the significance of defections. ‘’They jumped to us from other parties when we were in power. They are departing from us now that we have lost power,’’ according to the BRS spokesperson Dasoju Srravan. The party's performance in the Lok Sabha elections will not be affected by these defections he clarified. He went on to say that the BRS had a "robust organization" and that the subsequent level of leadership would be able to handle things even if many top-level leaders seemed to be departing. There will be a transition from the second to the first layer of leaders, he declared.

KCR in Telangana politics

Nevertheless, the amount of support that the BRS manages to retain is likely to be influenced by Kavitha's arrest as well as KCR's ongoing "inaccessibility"—a factor that will be considered in the Assembly polls. Members of the BRS privately expressed their dissatisfaction with KCR and the other top leadership for failing to take the Assembly poll results into consideration, maintaining their distance, and failing to demonstrate any signs of mounting a formidable challenge in the Lok Sabha elections. Not helping matters is KCR's injury, which sidelined him shortly after the results.