The crushing defeat of non-NDA parties in Lok Sabha elections shattered the dreams of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao, who was looking to play a key role at the Centre.

The results came as a huge blow to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief who was working to cobble up a “Federal Front” to form a non-BJP, non-Congress government at the Centre.

KCR, as Rao is popularly known, was even being seen as the potential prime ministerial candidate by his party in the event of regional parties emerging as a major bloc in the Lok Sabha.

What is more shocking for KCR is that his party could not achieve the goal of making a clean sweep in Telangana.

KCR’s party was aiming to win 16 seats leaving Hyderabad for its ally All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). Both the BJP and the Congress dealt a blow to the TRS’ plans as they were together ahead in seven constituencies.

KCR’s daughter K. Kavitha failed to retain her Nizamabad seat. She was one of the 11 MPs of the TRS in previous Lok Sabha.

The outcome is shocking for the TRS as it came barely six months after it retained power in Telangana with a landslide victory, winning 88 seats in 119-member Assembly.

It was after this huge win that KCR had revived his plans for Federal Front by meeting West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who head the Trinamool Congress and the Biju Janata Dal, respectively.

A few days ago, the TRS chief stepped up his efforts by holding talks with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, and DMK leader M.K. Stalin.

It was in March last year KCR had who proposed the Federal Front to bring what he called a qualitative change in national politics. He had held series of meetings with leaders of various non-NDA parties.

After the massive victory in Assembly elections, KCR had appointed his son K. T. Rama Rao as the Working President of the TRS so that he can focus on national politics. This was also seen as an attempt to pave way for Rama Rao to take over as Chief Minister in the event of KCR moving to Delhi.

In 2014, the TRS had won 11 Lok Sabha seats while Congress had bagged two. The BJP, the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the AIMIM had won a seat each.

The MPs of the YSRCP and the TDP and one of the two MPs of Congress had later switched loyalties to the TRS.

With just one round of polling remaining, Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) on Saturday expressed confidence that the regional political parties would garner a major chunk of Lok Sabha seats and would bind in the form of a ‘Federal Front’ for governance at the Centre.

TRS chief K. Chandrashekar Rao has been making efforts for months to form a Federal Front and has personally met Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav, Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and CPI-M leader and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

He is also in touch with YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) chief Jaganmohan Reddy and leaders of some other political parties for this purpose.

Rao, who is popularly known as KCR, also met DMK chief M.K. Stalin recently besides holding talks with Janata Dal (Secular) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy. Significantly, both the DMK and the JD(S) are allies of the Congress, unlike the SP, TMC, BJD, CPI-M and YSRCP, which have so far displayed equidistance from both the BJP-led NDA and the Congress-led coalitions.

Rao’s close associate and TRS MP B. Vinod Kumar told IANS over phone that although the party chief was in touch with leaders like Naveen Patnaik, Mamata Banerjee and Akhilesh Yadav, the discussions were not about who will go where.

He said KCR was in touch with the leaders of various political parties with regard to the formation of a Federal Front.

“When we met Kerala Chief Minister (Vijayan), he also agreed. KCR also spoke to the Karanataka Chief Minister,” Kumar said, adding, “All of us will sit together and put forward the decisions before the new government.”

However, the “political strategy” will be finalised after the election results are declared, Kumar said.

When pointed out that DMK and JD-S, whose leaders KCR had met, were already part of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and whether there was any scope of them leaving the Congress-led alliance, the TRS leader reminded how the UPA was formed after the 2004 Lok Sabha elections and how the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was formed after the 1998 polls.

“KCR’s concern is that whatever formulation emerges after the elections, we should put forward our issues by supporting that formulation,” the TRS leader said.

Asked about a possibility of TRS, BJD and YSRCP jointly deciding on a common strategy after the elections, Kumar said, “It will depend on the outcome of the polls and whether there will be a necessity of these parties.”

Accordingly, a call will also be taken as to which parties to go with, he said.

Kumar, who accompanied his party chief for the meeting with Stalin in Chennai earlier this week, said the discussions focused on how regional parties should have a say in the policy decisions of the government of India.

He said despite the country having a federal structure, the regional parties don’t have a say in the governance at the Centre.

This is the idea behind the ‘Federal Front’, which aims to ensure that the interests of states are taken care of, he said.

“We want that regional parties should have a say in policy decisions of the government of India,” the TRS leader said, adding that the main issues were devolution of funds to the states and other matters related to the Concurrent List of the Constitution.

To ensure that, regional parties have to be together and bargain, Kumar said.

“Our idea is that we want to push forward our Federal Front agenda, i.e., the states should be given more power, they should be considered while taking major decisions. We want to discuss all these points. We don’t know who will agree to this or what will be the outcome. All these things will happen only after May 23,” Kumar said.

“We are together (the Federal Front parties). The NDA had surfaced only after the results of 1998 elections. Likewise, the UPA only surfaced after the elections (of 2004). Some new formulation will come out after the results,” the TRS leader said.

“We have issues concerning states which are ruled by the regional political parties. There are many subjects under the Concurrent List which we think should be deleted. Education, health all these issues. There are also other issues regarding devolution of funds,” he said.

On the prospective outcome of the Lok Sabha polls, he said, “TRS believes that regional parties will get a major share of seats”.

When asked about the contentious issue of who would be the Prime Ministerial candidate of a regional front, if it is in a position to form the government, the TRS leader merely said, “We will discuss, debate and finalise after the results are out.”

It is known news that KCR’s meeting with Stalin did not go on expected lines. KCR’s plan of pulling DMK out of UPA to support the federal front with only regional parties did not work out as Stalin asked KCR to support UPA instead. After this meeting, Tamil started focusing and analyzing KCR’s federal front.

KCR has been mulling the idea of federal front for almost one year now. He has been talking about the possibility of forming the central government without Congress and BJP. However, many political parties, especially in Telugu states are calling KCR an agent of Modi and predicting that KCR will support Modi after elections. Some leaders in Telugu states called Federal front as Modi’s Plan-B almost one year back.

Click here:
https://www.telugu360.com/te/kcr-meeting-leaders-for-federal-front/

Now Tamil media and politicians debating in Tamil channels are pointing exactly the same thing and saying KCR’s front is Modi’s plan-B. They are even questioning why KCR is meeting only UPA allies and not opening any debate with Shiv sena or Akalidal or Nitish Kumar who are supporting NDA. They are questioning the genuineness of KCR’s federal front and quoting, “If KCR is really serious about the federal front with regional parties, he should discuss with parties supporting NDA as well”.

Results will be out in less than 10 days and political climate is warming up again across the country.

Telangana CM K Chandrasekhara Rao has met West Bengal CM Mamata Bennerjee recently to gather support for his Federal Front efforts. She has not given any commitment to KCR but welcomed regional parties to work against the Bharatiya Janata Party in the states. But now her Trinamool Congress leaders have almost announced Mamata’s bid to run for the prime minister’s post in the 2019 election.

Actually, there are some regional parties that want to form a strong pre-poll alliance with Rahul Gandhi as prime ministerial candidate to counter the Modi government in the election. The DMK has already announced this. The TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu has said no PM candidate has been announced from the side of Mahakutami as of now.

Seeing Mamata’s prime ministerial aspirations, KCR has approached her with his proposal for Federal Front. The Congress and TDP leaders see this as a clever move by KCR in order to widen differences between Mamata and Mahakutami only to benefit the BJP eventually. It should be recalled KCR has met with Modi after visiting the states’ leaders. TDP has raised doubts about this visit. Now questions arose whether KCR will support Mamata’s prime ministerial dreams so as to divide anti-BJP alliances to benefit Modi.

G.Ravikiran