TRS extends support to Yashwant Sinha in Presidential poll

Hours after opposition presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha filed his nomination, the ruling TRS in Telangana on Monday said it would support the candidature in the Presidential election, with its working president K T Rama Rao saying the decision has been made to "safeguard" democratic and constitutional values.

New Delhi: The ruling TRS in Telangana on Monday said it would support the candidature of joint opposition nominee Yashwant Sinha in the Presidential election, with its working president K T Rama Rao saying the decision has been made to "safeguard" democratic and constitutional values. Rao, who is also the state IT Industries Minister, was present during Sinha's nomination filing in Parliament House, and was accompanied by five party MPs and other leaders.

"President of @trspartyonline Sri KCR Garu has decided to extend support to the candidature of Sri @YashwantSinha Ji in the election for President of India "Along with our Members of Parliament, I will be representing the TRS at the nomination today," Rama Rao, son of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, tweeted. Later talking to reporters in Delhi, Rao said, "To safeguard democratic and constitutional values, we have extended our support to Mr Yashwant Sinha."

He said the TRS has also invited Sinha to Hyderabad. "The central government is being autocratic and has toppled eight state government which were duly elected," the TRS leader alleged. Asked about NDA's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu, Rao said, "As a leader we respect her but on January 2, 2006 when she was minister in the cabinet, 13 tribals were killed in Kalinganagar in Odisha, but she spoke nothing at the time."

He said many tribal related issues of Telangana have been pending for a long time, and hoped she would extend her support. The TRS leader said the state government has passed a legislation to increase the existing reservation for tribals and expressed the hope that Murmu, as a tribal, would extend to the state's proposal.

TRS sources said the party is supporting Sinha's candidature as he is the nominee of opposition parties and TRS is vehemently opposed to the BJP. Though the TRS had supported NDA in the election of the President and Vice- President earlier, it has been strident in its criticism of the BJP in recent months for the latter's alleged politics of "hatred and failure in governance".

The TRS, however, had stayed away from the joint meetings of the opposition parties to decide on their candidate in the Presidential election on grounds that it cannot share the platform with the Congress. TRS sources had earlier said the party maintains equidistance from both the Congress and the BJP.

Assembly elections in Telangana are due late next year and the Congress and the BJP are both seeking to oust the ruling TRS from power in the state. The tenure of the current assembly is till January 16, 2024, but assembly elections would be held prior to that and could be held in late 2023. The TRS has nine Lok Sabha and seven Rajya Sabha members besides 101 MLAs in the Telangana Legislative Assembly. (PTI)