As Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) aims to make inroads into Maharashtra, Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) senior leader Ajit Pawar said that even Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) Mayawati and the late Mulayam Singh Yadav of Samajwadi Party (SP) had attempted to establish a presence in the western State but they had ultimately proved unsuccessful.
“He [K. Chandrasekhar Rao] is trying to expand BRS outside Telangana as he might want to become a national leader,” Mr. Ajit Pawar said, emphasising the potential for regional parties to strengthen themselves beyond their home States.
The Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly said that as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, both Ms. Mayawati and Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav had tried to expand their respective parties in Maharashtra with some MLAs from SP and BSP, but in vain.
Asking who was going to look after the party’s affairs in Maharashtra as Mr. Rao is the Chief Minister of the neighbouring State, Mr. Ajit Pawar said some leaders from the NCP and other parties were joining BRS out of concern that they would not get tickets to contest polls due to the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, and the one between the BJP and the Shiv Sena.
Mr. Rao has held three impressive public meetings — the first rally in Nanded on February 5, another at Kandhar-Loha in Nanded on March 26, and the latest one in Aurangabad on April 24, apart from a training programme at Nanded and the party office’s inauguration in Nagpur, but he is still in search of a charismatic leader who can garner mass appeal and navigate the highly competitive political landscape of the western State. He has been looking for a farmers’ leader from the dominant Maratha community to be the face of the BRS in Maharashtra.
Further, Mr. Pawar also questioned the expenses incurred for large hoardings and TV advertisements promoting the BRS in Maharashtra.
