KCR’s national party welcome but BJP is going to rule: Laxman

HYDERABAD: Saying he “welcomed” Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s decision to float a national party, BJP MP Dr K Laxman on Friday said that his party’s central leadership wants to form a government in the State, as Telangana was going to be the party’s gateway to its southern expansion.

Disclosing that there were TRS MLAs who were interested in joining BJP at an appropriate time, Laxman said that the decision to welcome them will be taken with caution and after scrutiny, and without any pre-conditions. “BJP will win the Munugode byelection hands-down,” he asserted, pointing out that TRS has not even declared its candidate till now.

Talking about his recent visits to rural areas of the State, Laxman said he saw “severe anti-incumbency” against the TRS government and its MLAs losing their connect with people.  The BJP MP said he witnessed similar scenes in Andhra Pradesh during a recent trip to Tirupati and other street-corner meetings in rural areas. “The common citizens there are complaining about the lack of development in the State and are unhappy.” While confirming that the BJP would continue its alliance with Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Party, Laxman, however, ruled out any tie-up with the Telugu Desam.  

As regards the Congress, he predicted that the grand old party would soon be wiped out from power in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, where he said there was severe opposition against the Congress among people.

Speaking to the media in an informal interaction on Friday, Laxman said that appointing Arvind Menon as the party’s co-incharge of Telangana and BJP general secretary Sunil Bansal as the in-charge, in addition to Tarun Chugh as an in-charge, showed how the central leadership was making efforts to build the party ground-up.

He said that the national executive members and other attendees of the party’s national executive meetings held recently in Hyderabad, had toured all 119 Assembly constituencies, and had given a report to Sunil Bansal about the organisational strengths and weaknesses of the party at the grassroot level. Regarding the programmes like ‘Praja Gosa-BJP Bharosa’ rallies, he said that by the end of December all the villages across the State would have been covered.

On BJP’s OBC Morcha which he currently leads, he said that the Morcha has completed forming committees in 30 States, and especially in Telangana, various BC communities who had traditionally supported TDP and then TRS, were now leaning towards BJP due to the political representation given by the BJP to the community members.