BRS working president and IT minister, K.T. Rama Rao, has been touring in the US since August 20. KTR, the only son of BRS President and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, left for the US on August 20, exactly a day before his father declared the list of 115 BRS candidates on August 21 for the upcoming Assembly polls scheduled for December.
A few of the BRS leaders, known to be close aides of KTR, did not receive party tickets to contest elections. This fueled speculations that KTR knew the candidate list in advance.
Anticipating pressure from his close aides for tickets and also to avoid the embarrassment of not ensuring tickets for them, KTR reportedly left for the US.
KTR's close aides, such as Manne Krishank, Errolla Srinivas, Shambhipur Raju, Pochampally Srinivas Reddy, Bonthu Rammohan, etc., were expecting tickets. However, none of these names appeared on the candidate list announced by KCR.
KTR expressed his disappointment by taking to Twitter on August 21, stating that due to political compulsions, a few of the most deserving and capable leaders like Krishank could not be given tickets, and the party would provide them with other opportunities to serve the people.
KTR was supposed to return to Hyderabad soon after admitting his son, Himanshu, to a US university for an undergraduate course. However, KTR did not return even after a week. KTR has now extended his US tour in the name of holding meetings with investors to attract investments in TS.
KCR toured the US for two weeks to attract investments only recently in May. BRS circles say that KTR never visited the US for investments within a gap of two months earlier.
They suspect that KTR was only trying to extend his US tour under the guise of investments to avoid pressure for tickets from his close aides and also to avoid the embarrassment of not ensuring tickets for them.