BRS holds mega rally with national pitch, leaders ask people to dislodge BJP regime at Centre

A clarion call for regime change at the Centre, by dislodging the BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha polls was sounded by prominent opposition leaders in the first mega rally of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao-led Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) here on Wednesday.

Taunting the Central government over a host of issues including those on interstate water and development issues, Rao, in his address said Prime Minister Narendra Modi would go home and a dispensation propped up by BRS shall stop initiatives like the 'LIC disinvestment' and implement welfare measures like the Rythu Bandhu for farmers across the nation. Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav said, Prime Minister Narendra Modi commented in his party's national executive meet that only 400 days are left for the 2024 LS election. The ruling BJP has started 'counting its days' and it would not last a day more in power after its present tenure, Yadav said.

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The mega public meeting was the first after Telangana Rashtra Samithi recently rechristened itself as BRS. By bringing in several leaders including Aam Aadmi Party's Arvind Kejriwal and Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav, in a show of strength against the Saffron party, the BRS has taken its first steps towards joining forces with like-minded parties at the national level. Also, it is expected to help BRS to take on the BJP within the State more strongly.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said: "Now, the country wants a change. People came to know that these people (NDA government) did not come to change the country. They just came to ruin the country. The 2024 elections are an opportunity for you (people). Ten years is over. How long will you wait?" He asked people to usher in a regime that would think about the country, unemployment, healthcare and price rise. It is not the governors of some States who are troubling the elected chief ministers, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi, indicating that they act on the behest of the PM, the AAP leader said.

Accusing the BJP-ruled Centre of 'undoing' the foundations of the nation's democracy, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan called for a 'new resistance' to protect secularism, democracy and the Constitution. People should unite against the communal agenda that seeks to divide the country.

"I hope that today, in Khammam, the land of people's resistances, we will have the beginning of a new resistance, a resistance to secure the ideals that we fought for in our freedom struggle. A resistance to protect our secularism, our democracy, our Constitution and thereby our nation," he said. By allowing the concentration of wealth through consistent appeasement of corporates, they go against the concept of socialism and by seeking to replace parliamentary democracy with presidential form of governance, they go against the concept of democracy, Vijayan said.

Read | BRS workers' Hindi chant pitches KCR as national leader

Without directly naming BJP, the veteran Marxist leader said there is a 'peculiar situation' in which a political formation that was not part of our national freedom struggle is in power in the country. Rao, speaking later said, free power would be provided to farmers across the country and the Agnipath scheme for recruitment in Armed forces would be abolished if a 'BRS proposed government' captured power at the Centre in 2024, following polls to the Lok Sabha.

He said the BRS is opposed tooth and nail to the 'disinvestment of LIC' "Make in India has become a joke in India. There is Make in India, but there are China bazaars in every street (in the country),” he said, ridiculing the NDA government's flagship programme.

Schemes like Telangana’s Rythu Bandhu (for the welfare of farmers) should be implemented throughout the country and it is his party's slogan and demand, Rao asserted. He slammed the BJP and Congress, alleging that both the parties are responsible for interstate water issues. Yadav said that the ruling BJP has been pushing the nation behind and it is time for all progressive leaders to come together and work for the country's development.

"BJP will be out of power after 399 days and a new government will be in place on the 400th day," he said. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said the country wanted jobs and the youth are jobless.

CPI General Secretary D Raja said: "We will have to fight against the BJP-RSS combine and will have to defeat them in the forthcoming 2024 election. This is the message that should go from Khammam, the revolutionary centre of Telangana. I appeal to all secular democratic parties who are present here who are not present here to understand the emerging threat and understand the disaster that we are facing."

The event galvanised the BRS party workers who shouted slogans hailing the party-led regime's welfare schemes in Telangana and peppy political songs praised Rao's 'national' emergence.