Telangana CM KCR’s national dreams are far-fetched atleast for now…..

Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has long been pitching himself as a credible alternative to the Congress and the Bharathiya Janata Party(BJP). But the road to national prominence is not easy for him. Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) first have to brave the anti-incumbency factor to win the state elections slated to be in 2023 before he even tries his luck at national elections in 2024.

He has made a plethora of promises that remain unfulfilled even after six years of his rule in the State, causing the feeling of anti-incumbency to reach its peak. During the Telangana agitation, he vouched to appoint a Dalit CM in the State but later, despite being from a dominant class, decided to keep the CM's office to himself. His decision to increase the retirement age of government employees was not welcomed well by the jobless youths.

Despite promising to create more job opportunities for the youth in the State, unemployment has only risen after he became CM. The increasing joblessness among the youth in Telangana, has rendered one of KCR's triple promises – neellu (water), nidhulu (funds), and niyamakalu (jobs) – void. Successfully dousing the flames of anti-incumbency is the first challenge ahead of him in its dream of becoming a national leader and forming a 'federal front'.

The BJP's spectacular win in the recent assembly elections has reinstated the saffron party as a formidable force to deal with. The party is constantly expanding its footprint in Telangana, as evident by its win in Dubbak (2020) and Huzurabad (2021) by-polls for state Assembly seats. The BJP's presence in this southern State is increasing rapidly, and it took KCR by surprise when it won four Lok Sabha seats, including the one held by KCR's daughter Kavitha Kalvakuntla. BJP's expansion in the State and nationally makes KCR's dream of creating an anti-BJP front and becoming a national leader much more unattainable.

 Apart from this, KCR's quest to find leaders to join his anti-BJP-Congress front was welcomed with suspicion by regional parties. KCR's stand on creating a front without the grand old party Congress is viewed as non-viable by leaders, including Tamil Nadu CM M.K Stalin, mainly owing to Congress's secular credentials and pan-India presence. This lack of consensus over Congress's inclusion in the anti-BJP camp among prospective partners in KCR's federal front is a major deterrent to national leader dreams. Many of the ladders he has approached also don't seem as enthusiastic as KCR about the anti-BJP-Congress front. This was evident when KCR's protest against the Centre's paddy procurement policy in Delhi lacked participation from any national or regional party leaders. This was after KCR had reached out to leaders, including Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan, Maharashtra CM Uddav Thakeray, Shiv Sena leader Sharad Pawar, Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin, and Bengal CM, to form the 'federal front.'

Despite his vow to fight against "the divisive, communal forces," his past bonhomie with BJP is creating a trust deficit.KCR covertly backing BJP's controversial decisions, including GST, demonetisation, RTI Amendment Bill, Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill, Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA), NRC is not helping his cause either.

A look at the present political landscape indicates that KCR's ambition of being a national leader by 2024 seems far-fetched and unrealistic. Unless he comes up with a strategy to overcome the lost gamut of obstacles, his projection as the new leader of the proposed Opposition front will likely to remain a dream and not a reality.