Congress to fight on its own in Telangana; Rahul Gandhi says 'No' to alliance with TRS

Congress will not ally with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in the upcoming assembly elections in Telangana, said Rahul Gandhi to the senior party leaders of the Telangana Congress at his residence on Monday. Rahul, earlier in the evening, met with over 30 senior leaders of the Telnagana Congress including Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) Chief Revanth Reddy, AICC Incharge of Telangana Manickam Tagore and AICC General Secretary organisation KC Venugopal. 

After the meeting, Reddy said, "We held a discussion with Rahul ji over various issues including farmers, inflation, fuel price hike and paddy procurement etc. Rahul ji will visit Telangana this month. No alliance...Congress will fight against TRS and BJP in Telangana."

Notably, this is the second time Rahul Gandhi met with the party's state leaders in the span of last week. Earlier on March 31, hitting out at Telangana CM, Reddy had remarked that CM KCR is not trustworthy. Claiming that KCR has become weak in Telangana politics and is misleading people by talking about national politics, the Congress state chief added that Rahul Gandhi will visit Telangana in April and further will expose the lies by the KCR government. 

This announcement by Rahul Gandhi can have a national impact, as TRS is actively seeking an anti-BJP alliance and has started meeting leaders from other states to form a bloc for the 2024 general elections. In the assembly elections in Telangana in 2018, Congress had tied up with the Telugu Desam Party but could not stop the return of K Chandrashekhar Rao's TRS.

Telangana Elections 2023

Earlier on March 21, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao acknowledged that poll strategist and founder of the Indian Political Action Committee, Prashant Kishor, is working with him.

Meanwhile, BJP has also started laying the groundwork for the assembly elections. The party strategist and home minister Amit Shah is expected to visit Telangana on April 14. The party has already started with surveys on collecting information on the demands of the people from the party and the Government. 

Congress is the second biggest party in the state with 19 seats, followed by Owaisi's AIMIM, which has seven seats. BJP, which fought on 118 seats in the previous elections, managed just a single seat.  

IMAGE:  @ANI_TWITTER/AP