Bharat Rashtra Samithi led by Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhara Rao is all set to get a foothold in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh with the joining of several Andhra leaders in his presence in Hyderabad on Monday.
Prominent among them are: retired IAS officer and Kapu leader Thota Chandrashekhar, former minister and Dalit leader Ravela Kishore Babu and former Indian Revenue Services Officer Chintala Parthasarathi, besides others.
Since Sunday evening, the BRS leaders are going euphoric over joining of these leaders and have been extensively sending messages to the media as if it is a major political development in Andhra Pradesh.
According to party sources, Chandrasekhar, who worked with the Jana Sena party, is likely to be appointed the Andhra Pradesh State wing president for the BRS. They say the Kapu leader contested a few elections and is an experienced leader in the State.
Similarly, Parthasarathi had contested from the Anakapalle Parliamentary constituency in 2019 on a Jana Sena ticket. And Ravela Kishore Babu served as the SC and ST Welfare Minister during the Chandrababu Naidu regime between 2014 and 2018. He later joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and served as AP State vice-president from 2020 to 2022, but quit the party later.
Similarly, former Praja Rajyam Party leader Thummalasetty Jaya Prakash Narayana will also be joining the BRS on Monday. He had joined Praja Rajyam in 2008 and actively participated in building the party cadre in Anantapur district of AP. He contested the 2009 Assembly election from Anantapur Urban constituency and secured nearly 30,000 votes, the party leaders said.
However, none of these leaders is very active in politics now and have hardly any popular image. One wonders what KCR is going to achieve in Andhra Pradesh by taking them into the BRS and giving them hype.
Secondly, one wonders whether they would get any public support, if they contest on behalf of the BRS in the next elections, since the people of Andhra Pradesh might not appreciate KCR’s entry into their state politics.
“They would have got at least some chances had they contested on Jana Sena ticket in the next elections. But what they would gain by joining the BRS and what the BRS would gain by admitting them, except for giving a hype to KCR in Andhra,” an analyst argued.