Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Wednesday has generated a lot of curiosity in the media and political circles.
Generally, it is a matter of courtesy for a newly-elected chief minister to meet the Prime Minister.
A few months ago, even Janata Dal (S) leader J D Kumaraswamy also met Modi soon after he was elected as Karnataka chief minister.
So, there is nothing much to be suspected in KCR meeting Modi.
Apart from making a courtesy call to the Prime Minister, KCR submitted him a list of various demands, including release of funds for 10 backward districts, Kendriya Vidyalayas in new district and an IIIT in Karimnagar district, transfer of Bison Polo ground lands for construction of secretariat and Road widening, establishment of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) at Hyderabad and 21 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs) in new districts, sanction of Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Hyderabad, revival of Cement Corporation of India (CCI) in Adilabad in joint collaboration with NHAI as proposed by the Ministry of Surface Transport etc.
Many of the demands mentioned in the wish list were old ones like conferring of National Project to Kaleshwaram status and sanction of special grant to this major irrigation project, expeditious completion of Railways projects, SC categorisation and tribal university at Warangal etc.
However, it is learnt there is more to this so-called courtesy call than what meets the eye.
Sources say Modi complimented KCR for the TRS party’s resounding victory in the assembly elections and enquired about KCR’s secret of success.
At the same time, he also enquired about the TRS president’s mission third front.
“Modi is very much part of KCR’s third front strategy – to prevent neutral players like Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Biju Janata Dal, Trinamul Congress and others from aligning towards the Congress-led grand alliance,” a source said.
These parties are strong opponents of the BJP, but at the same time, are not very keen to play a second fiddle to the Congress. However, if the necessity arises, they will support the Congress if the latter gets more than 100 Lok Sabha seats.
So, the objective of the federal front is to see that the Congress does not improve its tally much, so that these regional parties would not join with it.
This will ultimately benefit the BJP and KCR will happily become part of the NDA subsequently, sources said, adding that KCR and Modi had discussed the strategies to be adopted in this regard.