Why KCR skipped Mamata Banerjee's meet on Presidential elections

TRS supremo and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has abstained from a meeting of the Opposition parties in New Delhi on Wednesday, meant to put up a united face and decide on a candidate for the Presidential election next month.

KCR’s grievance, his party sources said, was primarily the Congress participation. And the Telangana CM is rancorous over his West Bengal counterpart’s invitation to the grand old party for the discussion despite his insistence on limiting the confluence to “non-BJP, non-Congress” parties.

TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee’s invitation letter sent out to the Congress, Left, and regional parties like the Shiv Sena, and TRS on Saturday, underlined the need for a “strong and effective Opposition to resist the divisive force plaguing us today.”

“But our leader KCR has been maintaining that such a resistance grouping should be devoid of both the BJP and Congress, which have equally failed in meeting the nation’s aspirations. So, the decision not to join the conversation,” a senior TRS MP told DH. However, there are state-level electoral calculations too.

Unlike West Bengal where the Congress has a very limited presence and in Maharashtra where Sena is in an alliance with it, in Telangana, the Sonia Gandhi-led party is the TRS’s rival and a major power despite the BJP’s impressive electoral endeavours in the last two years.

TRS leadership was infuriated by the Congress’s rally on farmers’ issues that Rahul Gandhi addressed at Warangal last month. “Rahul went on attacking the TRS government while keeping mum on the misdeeds of the Modi government. And at the local level, the Telangana Congress leaders operate in a manner benefiting the BJP,” a TRS leader said, in reference to the BJP’s Huzurabad bypoll victory.

Rahul’s attack on the KCR government was even more “hurting” for the TRS chief, for KCR stood in his defence when the former had demanded proof of surgical strikes on Pakistan from the Modi government.

The TRS supremo also has a different take on the strategy adopted by Mamata and others for the presidential polls. “There should have been a meeting first of the parties to arrive at a consensus on the Opposition candidate. Here, a candidate was picked first, and then consultations were initiated with other parties,” the MP said, pointing to NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s name.

Though not stating it explicitly, TRS leaders indicated that KCR is piqued about Mamata taking the lead in convening a conclave of Opposition parties, when he has been touring the country meeting Opposition leaders in an effort to stitch up an alternative alliance.