'Taggede...le': KCR remains impudent towards BJP, refuses to bow down

HYDERABAD: An innocuous post in a Whatsapp group read like this a couple of days ago: "Narendra Modi: Floccinaucinihiliphication; KCR: Honorificabilitudinitatibus."

These two complicated words are drawn from Tharooresaures, a compilation of 50 words that are almost never used, but Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has a penchant for using them.

'Floccinaucinihiliphication' means "the action or habit of estimating something as worthless". This is attributed Modi, because he is considering all his opponents as trivial and inconsequential.

Honorificabilitudinitatibus is ascribed to KCR. It means the state of being able to achieve honours; honourableness.

This seems so apt that Modi is perceiving KCR as trivial, while KCR is sparing no efforts to keep his flag flying high. Once the Modi Regime and KCR Administration chose to cross swords, things began hotting up between the two. KCR doesn't give in nor does he give up – Taggede le meaning no bowing down, as proclaimed by the hero in Allu Arjun-starrer pan-India movie, Pushpa.

KCR opposed Modi for the first time in July 2019 by making the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Members of Parliament to abstain from voting on the Triple Talaq Bills. Ever since, the chasm between the BJP and the TRS began widening with regard to policy matters.

This the BJP construed like the "Man's first disobedience to God" (recall John Milton's Paradise Lost). Here the man is KCR and the God is Modi, in their parlance.

KCR refused to meet the Prime Minister Narendra Modi even for protocol purposes and began avoiding to receive him since the inaugural of Statue of Equality in February 2022. Ever since, Modi made four visits to Telangana and KCR always deputed Minister for Animal Husbandry Talasani Srinivas Yadav, as Minister in Waiting on behalf of the State Government. It's a direct faceoff. KCR never minced words in launching a diatribe against Modi at every opportunity.

The TRS supremo had a resolution passed by the Telangana Assembly against the introduction of Citizenship Amendment Act-National Registry of Citizens in January 2020. He called for a resolution in January, while it was adopted in March the same year.

Things reached a flash point when Narendra Modi visited Hyderabad obliquely for a campaign for the BJP in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections in the garb of meeting scientists at Bharat Biotech Ltd, vaccine-maker for COVID-19, on November 28, 2020. Though Modi did not enter the city, his visit implied a campaign in favour of his party. KCR was actually peeved by this visit of Modi as the former was told he was "not required" to receive the Prime Minister officially.

The three infamous Farm laws introduced by the Modi administration faced stiff opposition from KCR, who joined the chorus against the Acts. The TRS joined the Bharat Bandh and took to streets opposing them and KCR organised a "Maha Dharna", first at Indira Park in Hyderabad (November 2021) and then in Delhi. These were the first BJP's decisions that drove KCR to have his party vote against the Bills proposed by the NDA Regime in the Parliemanet.

Of course, the denouement of byelection to Dubbaka, victory (by the BJP) in sizeable number of municipal divisions in the GHMC polls, and the forced byelection on Huzurabad naturally irked KCR. Ever since, it's a no-holds-barred fight between the two parties in Telangana.

KCR has assumed a posture of a thorn in the flesh of the BJP and later an impudent leader, showing the signs of spearheading the conglomerate of opposition parties by undertaking yatras to different states to garner the support of the various regional satraps. In the process, KCR spelt out a national vision and mission that became an eyesore, obviously so, to the BJP.

The TRS began to pull all the stops to checkmate the rise (or bloated self-proclaimed popular support base) of the BJP in Telangana. The first blow on the BJP was dealt by the TRS in March 2021 when the latter did not take any chance in having its surprise nominee Surabhi Vani Devi, daughter of former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao in the legislative council election, win a fiercely-contested poll.

He laid a foundation for TRS office in the national capital in September 2021. By then, KCR had more or less decided to take the bull of the BJP by its proverbial horns.

KCR and the entire TRS lot, under the aegis of its Working President KT Rama Rao, began to haul the BJP over the coals at every given opportunity by impaling its foibles and also how the Centre is failing on all indices. KTR successfully lapped up every opportunity to highlight how well Telangana as a State has been performing extremely well, even by the standards set by the BJP-led Centre itself. Telangana, by almost ever manner of means, topped the indices within the country. He went on releasing the statistical data and with a view to injecting the fact that Telangana was the best State, launched a perfect campaign that synced well with the people who are otherwise not bothered about mundane numbers.

The TRS organised a protest in Delhi in April 2022 against the paddy procurement policy that generated a lot of animosity between the two parties. By virtue of demonstrating his avowed impudence towards Modi, KCR signaled that all opposition leaders could one day rally behind him. In the process of challenging the BJP's supremacy, KCR officially had a resolution adopted by the general body of the TRS converting it into a national party and changing its name to Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) on October 5, 2022 marking the Dussehra.

Meanwhile, the BJP, expecting to ride on the crest of financial popularity of Congress MLA Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy, had the latter resign from the Telangana Assembly, scooped him out of the grand old party and gobbled him up into it. Thus, the BJP thrust a byelection on the nondescript rural constituency of Munugode. However, KCR did not take it lying down. He fielded the party's defeated candidate in the erstwhile elections and organised a high-octane campaign.

The BJP, in fact, chose to draw up a plan to pull off a systematic coup against KCR in a "phased manner". This was diligently exposed by KCR through a sting operation, at which he proved himself to be very deft (refer to the notorious 'mana vaallu...briefed me' cash-for-vote case involving current TPCC president A Revanth Reddy who was caught in front of cameras trying to bribe Anglo-Indian MLA Elvis Stephenson wads of currency).

Four of the TRS MLAs, Pilot Rohit Reddy (Tandur), Guvvala Balaraju (Achempet), Rega Kantha Rao (Pinapaka) and Beeram Harshavardhan Reddy (Kollapur), alerted their party echelons and facilitated an explosive expose of the design of the BJP.

With this, KCR scored brownie points among people by proving how much of loyalty he commands from his MLAs and how much of confidence he reposes in his followers. Aside from this, KCR's efforts paid off in TRS wresting the Munugode seat. With the sting operation becoming a police case and the matter reaching the precincts of judiciary, KCR meticulously set the agenda and narrative for several months to come, as the MLAs' poaching case is making headlines almost every day.