High on ambition, low on realism

The rebirth of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) as the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) through a change of name is short on logic and long on wishful thinking. Party chief and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s argument is that there is a vacuum in national politics as the difference between a waxing BJP and a waning Congress is huge and the gap is waiting to be filled with the right party. It is true that there is a vacuum, but the question is whether the TRS is the right party to step into that space, that too with just a sleight of name. There are many other parties in the country which have India or Bharat in their names but are confined to states or even districts and have no national presence. Raising itself to the national level is no easy task for a regional party.

Most regional parties which are entrenched in their bases, like the Trinamool Congress, the Shiv Sena and NCP, have failed to graduate to the national level. Their rootedness, which gives them strength in their turf, has in fact been their limitation and the key constraining factor in going national. This is the case with TRS, too. The party was born out of the struggle for a separate Telangana state, and it is identified with the state. Rao worked in both the Congress and the TDP and came to the political forefront in fortuitous circumstances. He has gained from the opportunistic decisions he made, and the party has ruled the state since its formation, winning two consecutive elections. But much of the political capital that he had has been spent now and his record in office is poor, marked by charges of corruption, favouritism, arbitrariness and populism of dubious value. The party is a family fief, with his son and daughter being the only other prominent faces in the party.

The TRS does not have a political identity or governance record to be noticed at the national level. What would the party represent, except Rao’s personal ambition? Telangana has only 17 Lok Sabha seats and that does not give it much political clout. Rao is feeling the heat from the BJP in his state and the present plans may have been prompted by that. But it is surprising that he is trying to go national when regional parties have been found to be more effective in resisting the BJP. He probably eyes a leading position in a future national line-up against the BJP, but does not have the credibility, stature and equipment for that. He actually risks losing or diminishing his own base.