'Family enterprise' to political party: Can KCR truly revamp BRS?

In order to prevent the mass exodus from the party before the elections to the local bodies of Telangana, Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) leader K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) is reportedly planning to revamp the outfit from top to bottom.

According to party insiders, the objective is to make the BRS look like a political party rather than a family enterprise.

Local body elections are to be held in August or September unless the government wants to postpone them. While the term of Panchayats ended in February, the tenure of Zilla Parishads will expire by the end of June 2024.

Following two successive defeats, one in the November 2023 Assembly elections and then the May 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it is a big opportunity for the BRS to prove its relevance in the state politics.

Working presidents

According to the plan, KCR, the party president, will soon appoint two working presidents, one from backward castes and another from the Scheduled Castes in the place of the existing single post, held by his son KT Rama Rao. More seats are expected to be offered to these sections at all levels.

Local media is agog with stories that KCR has identified former IPS officer Dr RS Praveen Kumar, who switched to the BRS from BSP just before Lok Sabha elections, as one working president and is on the lookout for a Backward Caste leader.

Family enterprise

The BRS has no formal organisational structure even two decades after its inception in 2001 when it was the TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samiti). It had no decision-making body as in the Congress or BJP. The family consisting of patriarch KCR, his son KT Ramarao, daughter Kavitha and nephew T Harish Rao is the high command.

Between 2001 and 2014, when Telangana was formed, the party was driven by a strong regional sentiment. Between 2014, when the BRS formed took power following a thumping majority in the election held after the state formation, and 2023, when it was defeated in Assembly elections, the ‘father of Telangana’ image of KCR coupled with political power propelled the party.

Electoral lessons

However, after drawing a blank in the Lok Sabha elections, the leadership appears to have felt the need to give a democratic façade to the family-run BRS.

In the Lok Sabha Elections, out of 17 seats, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won eight each and the remaining one was bagged by the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). The erosion of the BRS popularity was so appalling that its vote share fell to 16.7 per cent from 37.3 per cent in the 2023 Assembly elections – in just six months.

In the absence of power and erosion of popularity of the leader, the party fears a mass exodus of MLAs and other leaders. So, according to sources, KCR is planning to make BRS an inclusive body before it is too late and make it fit to fight the elections to Panchayats and Zilla Parishads.

'Desperate move'

Many see these elections as KCR’s last port of call before the BRS degenerates into the Janata Dal (Secular) of Telangana.

BS Ramulu, noted OBC activist and first chairman of the Telangana Backward Castes Commission, said the move to appoint a backward caste leader as working president of the party is unlikely to please OBCs in the state.

“During his 10-year rule, the BC and SC and ST Corporations were defunct. Instead of improving employment opportunities for the youth of these sections, KCR washed off his hands by providing sheep and occupation-based benefits to these castes. Disillusioned, the BC, SC and ST youths who powered the movement from various universities are now gravitating to either the Congress and the BJP,” Ramulu, one of ideologues of Telangana movement, told The Federal.

In Ramulu’s view, the move is a ploy to keep the BRS flag afloat when something unexpected happens in the near future.

KCR’s arrest?

“KCR’s daughter is in Tihar jail. Two judicial commissions are inquiring into the role of KCR in the alleged corruption that took place in construction of some major power and irrigation projects. This may lead to KCR’s arrest. So, he is preparing a contingency plan to run the party when the family is in trouble,” Ramulu said.

In the view of Karli Srinivasulu, a former political science professor from Osmania University, Hyderabad, KCR’s move to restructure the party with OBC and SC leaders may prove ineffective given their degree of disenchantment with BRS policies.

Knee-jerk reaction

“The youth from OBC and SC communities were the backbone of the Telangana identity politics. The ubiquitous presence of the KCR family and his national ambition which led to the conversion of Telangana Rashtra Samiti into BRS created a disconnect between the regional party and the people who sustained the movement. A token step of appointing two working presidents from OBC and SC is unlikely to help the party much at this juncture,” he said.

A similar sentiment was expressed by Dalit intellectual Dr Balaboyina Sudarshan. He said the move looked like a knee-jerk reaction to the drastic fall in the BRS vote share.

BRS splintering?

Stating that the exodus of these sections from BRS had already begun, he said it was unstoppable. Dr Sudarshan attributed this to the leadership’s inability to keep the BRS OBC-SC-ST- friendly.

“The OBC, SC and ST communities need new opportunities to fulfil their economic and political aspirations generated by sociological changes like higher education and growing income levels. The family-driven BRS looks like a mismatch. So, they started leaving the party. The migration gained momentum after the 2023 Assembly elections. This seems to have forced KCR to think of appointing an OBC and SC to the top party posts. This is unlikely to build bridges,” said Sudarshan, the director of the Phule-Ambedkar Centre of Philosophical and English Training.