Telangana Rashtra Samiti president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is planning to visit non-BJP ruled States to bring together regional parties as part of efforts to form an alternative to the BJP at the national level.
The Chief Minister is reported to have dropped indications to this effect during his meeting with his Tamil Nadu counterpart M. K. Stalin in Chennai on Tuesday.
Though the meeting was described as a courtesy call, the two Chief Ministers are understood to have discussed the political situation at the national level and the manner in which the BJP government is trying to usurp the rights of the States through its policies.
The two leaders had already expressed their objections to the policies adopted by the BJP-led NDA government asserting that they are detrimental to the interests of the States.
The Tamil Nadu government is at loggerheads with the Centre on issues relating to NEET while the Telangana government upped the ante against the BJP for its non-committal attitude on procurement of rice.
The meeting assumes significance in the light of intensification of efforts by regional parties such as Trinamool Congress and Sharad Pawar headed Nationalist Congress Party. TMC president and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called on the NCP chief earlier this month as part of efforts to forge an alternative to the BJP and the Congress.
“Regional parties will build up national parties. They alone can defeat the BJP,” she emphatically said after meeting Mr. Pawar.
Mr. Pawar on his part said leadership for the proposed alternative is secondary issue and the prime objective is to set up an alternative that could win people’s trust.
It was in this background that Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao called on Mr. Stalin and discussed Centre-State relations and the impact the policies adopted by the BJP government on the States against the spirit of federalism, an integral part of the Constitution.
The talks were said to be essentially focussed on the modalities that should be worked out to unite the Opposition parties, primarily regional parties, for effectively taking on the BJP in the next elections due after two years.
The meeting was about the need to evolve consensus among the regional parties in their struggle against the BJP government rather than the finer details relating to the proposed alternative. Since the influence of the national parties is on the wane in the recent years, the two leaders are understood to have focussed on the ways to forge an alternative by bringing together regional parties ensuring effective coordination between them.
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