CHENNAI/ HYDERABAD: After keeping
Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao waiting for almost a week,
DMK president M K
Stalin has agreed to meet the TRS leader on Monday. The meeting will take place at Stalin’s Alwarpet home.
Having proposed Congress president Rahul Gandhi as PM, and the DMK leading a Congress-inclusive alliance in Tamil Nadu, Stalin will not take the Federal Front bait that
KCR may throw, DMK sources said. When the two leaders met in Chennai on April 29, 2018, the idea of a Federal Front was not taken forward, though KCR denied having such a thing in mind then.
“There is no thought of going away from the Congress,” said a DMK leader. “Any meaningful discussion can happen only after the results. Who knows, KCR may be toying with the idea of joining the UPA?”
On Sunday, KCR left Hyderabad with his family members on a chartered flight to Chennai. He will visit some temples in and around Chennai, as well as in Puducherry. They visited Rameswaram on Thursday and offered prayers at Ramanathaswamy temple in the island town, besides visiting former president APJ Abdul Kalam’s memorial.
After his meeting with Stalin, KCR may go to Bengaluru to meet JD(S) leader and Karnataka chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, who is in power thanks to Congress support. He is also learned to have sought time for a meeting with Trinamool Congress leader and Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
“KCR is confident that neither the Congress nor the BJP will get a majority on their own. His effort is to make leaders of regional parties understand that they can themselves dictate who will rule the country instead of playing second fiddle to national parties,” a TRS leader said.
While Stalin and Kumaraswamy are in alliance with the Congress, Mamata met Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu last week. Earlier, Naidu had met Rahul Gandhi in Delhi.
Political analysts see little significance in the Stalin-KCR meet. “At the most, it would be a courtesy call. Stalin will not even think of backing out (from the Congress) at this juncture. In national politics, especially when it comes to alliance, integrity and trust factor matter a lot, and Stalin is aware of that,” said analyst M Kasinathan.
KCR, however, could have his agenda. TRS was the only non-ally that benefitted from the BJP government at the Centre, when its request to prepone assembly polls was immediately granted. “While it is no secret that KCR is keen on a Federal Front of regional parties, he could be secretly batting for BJP to keep the Congress at bay in a post-poll scenario,” he said.