BRS to celebrate silver jubilee with public meeting near Warangal

Hyderabad: Having started its journey in 2001 as an outfit to fight for Telangana statehood, the K Chandrasekhar Rao-led Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) is celebrating its silver jubilee on Sunday.

Rao will address a rally being organised on the occasion in Telangana's Hanumakonda district on Sunday evening. This is his major public appearance since the party's debacle in the 2023 Assembly elections.

Rao had addressed a public meeting in Nalgonda last year over protecting Telangana's interests in Krishna river waters.

He has been keeping a low profile since the party's defeat in the assembly polls and has often come under criticism from the ruling Congress and the BJP for attending Assembly sessions only a couple of times since then.

The party has made elaborate arrangements for the public meeting at Elkathurthy in Hanumakonda district, near Warangal, expecting several lakh people to turn up in as many as 50,000 vehicles.

The event is being organised in a whopping 1,213 acres of land, with 154 acres earmarked for the main public meeting. As many as 2,000 volunteers are involved in managing traffic, BRS said.

Asserting that the BRS has been making a relentless fight against the alleged failures of the Congress government, its Working President K T Rama Rao has said the rally on Sunday would create a new history in the state's politics.

It has been an eventful journey for BRS since the formation of the party (TRS then) was announced in Hyderabad with a handful of people on April 27, 2001 to agitate for Telangana statehood.

He had quit the posts of Deputy Speaker and MLA and the membership of TDP to launch the party.

In 2004, the TRS contested the Assembly and parliament elections in alliance with Congress.

Rao, who had served as Union Minister during the UPA government, later quit his post accusing the government of not taking concrete steps for the formation of Telangana.

In a major success for the TRS, Rao's indefinite fast led to the UPA government announcing the formation of Telangana in 2009.

With the formation of Telangana on June 2, 2014, Rao formed the first government in the state.

After a 10-year stint in power, the BRS suffered an electoral defeat in the 2023 Assembly elections.