Opposition leaders must do first things first

Telangana’s ruling party transformed itself into a national party last week by substituting the state’s name with Bharat, an alternative name of India sanctified by the Constitution.

Meeting in the state capital, Hyderabad, the party’s general body approved change of its name from Telangana Rashtra Samithi to Bharat Rashtra Samithi with loud applause.

The change signified the party’s desire to venture out and extend its influence beyond the state’s boundaries.

Ordinarily, state leaders setting their eyes on a wider horizon is a welcome development. For, it prompts them to take a broader view of issues and events than would be the case when they limit their attention to the problems and needs of their states. But the possibility that overweening personal ambition is what is driving these leaders cannot be ruled out.

At the meeting called to rename TRS as BRS, enthusiastic party members raised slogans hailing its founder and State Chief Minister, K Chandrashekar Rao, as a future Prime Minister.

Telangana, comprising the Telugu-speaking areas of the former princely state of Hyderabad, is a comparatively small state with only 17 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament. What fuels the ambitions of leaders of small parties is the fact that some leaders with limited personal appeal were able to occupy the Prime Minister’s chair in the highly fluid political conditions of the 1990s.

Incidentally, Chandrashekar Rao, whom followers refer to as KCR, began his political career with the Congress, then the country’s largest party, in the composite Telugu state of Andhra Pradesh.

When popular film star NT Rama Rao founded the regional Telugu Desam Party in 1982 to challenge Congress, he plumped for it and rose in its leadership. He served as a minister in TDP governments.

Sensing the widespread discontent in the Telangana region over its neglect by the composite Andhra Pradesh state, KCR formed the TRS in 2001 and campaigned for the formation of a separate state.

On coming to power in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi granted statehood to Telangana. As the man who led the successful movement, Chandrashekar Rao remains popular in Telangana. He led TRS to victory in two successive Assembly elections.

KCR has stated that at the national level, he will campaign for qualitative development all over the country. The people are entitled to a more detailed enunciation of BRS’s thinking on national issues.

He has also said he will work against communalism. This probably indicates his readiness to be part of an anti-BJP line-up.

The first regional party to seek a national image was West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC). When she quit the Indian National Congress and floated TMC she added the prefix “All-India” to the party’s name.

TMC initially entered the election arena in some small eastern states. In the recent Assembly elections in distant Goa, it fielded a few candidates.

Bengal is a large state with 42 Lok Sabha seats. That makes Mamata Banerjee a leader with the potential to play a significant role at the national level. But she needs to make her position on Opposition unity clear.

Opposition leaders must do first things first. The next Lok Sabha election is less than 20 months away. They cannot hope to pose an effective challenge to the well-oiled BJP machinery unless they can put together an alliance with an action programme which appeals to voters all across the country who are looking forward to betterment of their lives in conditions of equity and justice.

Parties which can provide a credible alternative must set up a committee to draw up their action programme after the widest possible consultations not only with the alliance partners but also with various sections of the society, especially the marginalised who have been waiting since long for justice. Amidst this exercise will arise a team that can inspire public confidence in the alliance’s ability to implement the action programme.