TRS to persist with efforts to forge federal front

Kolkata: Chief Minister of Telangana K. Chandrashekar Rao meets West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at her office in Howrah near Kolkata, Monday, Dec 24, 2018. (PTI Photo/Ashok Bhaumik) (PTI12_24_2018_000175B)

The Telangana Rashtra Samiti's fresh push towards forging a non-Congress, non-BJP federal front may have fallen short of the party's expectations, but the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led outfit is not losing heart.

As part of renewed efforts to bring like-minded regional parties on board, the Chief Minister had embarked on the mission a week ago, meeting Biju Janata Dal chief Naveen Patnaik and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee.

The Chief Ministers of Odisha and West Bengal remained non-committal -- at least in public -- but TRS sources claimed that it's early days and the party would persist with its efforts to build a federal front.

Rao was also scheduled to meet Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati, but that was not to be.

Yadav had said in Lucknow that he would meet Rao in Hyderabad after January 6 and appreciated his efforts to build such an alliance.

TRS deputy floor leader in the Lok Sabha and Karimnagar MP B Vinod Kumar said that Rao could not meet Mayawati due to paucity of time and added that the Chief Minister would hold discussions with her in the first week of January.

Rao headed back home from New Delhi today. "You can't expect results within a day or two, it's an ongoing process...to sell this idea of a federal front is not easy. Otherwise, someone else would have done this long back", Vinod Kumar told PTI.

"Everybody is thinking it (the idea) seriously", he claimed.

The Congress and the CPI have alleged that Rao's initiative is only aimed at splitting the anti-NDA votes, a charge repeatedly rejected by the TRS.

AICC in-charge of Telangana affairs, R C Khuntia said Rao is not "anti-BJP". "He is working as a 'B' team of (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi", he said.

On every issue, including demonetisation, GST, Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections, the TRS had supported the NDA, Khuntia said.

CPI General Secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy said: "We feel that this (Rao's efforts on federal front) is being organised on behalf of Narendra Modi to break the opposition unity." Rao is "trying to find those who are not very happy with the Congress and whether there is a possibility to try and woo them".

Till now, there has been no support to his federal front, Reddy said.