hyderabad
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has accepted the defeat in the Telangana Legislative Assembly elections with working president of the party K.T. Rama Rao stating that they will respect the mandate given by people in favour of the Congress.
“People have given the mandate of opposition role to us (BRS) this time after blessing us with two consecutive terms to govern the State. Although we expected better results based on the work done during the last nine-and-a-half years, we have been given a different role and which is not uncommon in politics”, Mr. Rama Rao said addressing a press conference here on Sunday.
He thanked the party ranks, every one of the 65 lakh strength, who “have toiled hard for the success of the party for over last 100 days”. It was their hard work that had enabled the party win 39 seats, he said and also thanked all those, including government employees, who have cooperated in governing the State since 2014.
“It’s not a wave against BRS as we have done extremely well in GHMC area and put up good show in combined Medak and Karimnagar district as well”, he stated.
Stating that setbacks were inevitable in the electoral politics for various reasons, the BRS working president said they were yet to analyse the causes for the defeat. “We will sit together to discuss as to where we went wrong in spite of doing good work done. For example, our Chennur candidate Balka Suman has done lot of development as an MP first and MLA later, but his rival has won with big majority”, he said.
Asking the party leaders and ranks not to get disheartened completely with the results, Mr. Rama Rao said equanimity was extremely important in politics as advocated regularly by their party president K. Chandrasekhar Rao. “We have faced many setbacks in our journey for statehood, including attempt to dismantle the party by taking over our MLAs, but we have bounced back every time,” he noted adding that this time too the party would bounce back as the ball that hits the wall.
Complimenting the Congress on its victory he said the BRS would play a constructive Opposition and allow the new government to settle down and expect them to fulfil the promises made to people.