ANALYSIS - 2024, Presidential elections, and Nitish: What spurred KCR into action?

The Telangana CM recently said that Modi-led NDA government should be dumped for its "anti-people" policies and that he would play a major role in uniting anti-BJP parties. KCR's plan, at worst, can be described as 'wishful thinking'. At best, however, it could also be the antidote to the ultimate sting, "If not Modi, then who?"

New Delhi: The results of the ongoing Assembly elections are bound to have a strong influence on the future of the national politics. While a frail Congress may still try to portray itself as THE opposition to the saffron party in the country, it is the political winds in Bengal, Telangana and Maharashtra that BJP fears of turning into a sandstorm.

Telangana Chief Minister Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao is putting all efforts to become the eye of that storm he intends to bring to Delhi way before the 2024 general elections. While KCR has been slamming the Narendra Modi-led government even more vehemently in the recent past, it is his attempts to cobble up a front to fight the saffron party that has infused new life into the otherwise banal political equations in the country.

It is speculated that KCR targets the upcoming Presidential elections 2022 and wants to project Janata Dal (United) leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as the president candidate. Insiders in TRS say that KCR plans to unite all the opposition parties ahead of the President of India elections scheduled in July this year. This, insiders say, would be a first step towards preparing ground for 2024 Lok Sabha polls. While Nitish has his B(JP)aggage to shed, his name, sources say, came up during the February 20 meeting KCR held with Maharashtra CM Uddav Thakeray in the country's financial capital.

KCR also met NCP chief Sharad Pawar during his Mumbai visit in which the latter stressed the need for all "like-minded" parties to join hands to resolve various issues like hunger, poverty, unemployment and the agrarian crisis facing the country.

It seems that after seeing Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's thumping victory against the BJP in the last Assembly elections in the State, the regional parties have started to believe that by opposing Narendra Modi's government in unison, the BJP can be defeated.

The Telangana CM recently said that Modi-led NDA government should be dumped for its "anti-people" policies and that he would play a major role in uniting anti-BJP parties. KCR's plan, at worst, can be described as 'wishful thinking'. At best, however, it could also be the antidote to the ultimate sting, "If not Modi, then who?"

It is likely that Nitish Kumar's name is being brought up assuming that Congress would not refuse his candidature. However, when ETV Bharat spoke to JDU national spokesperson KC Tyagi, he said, “No such resolution has been passed in the party so far, nor has there been any discussion within JDU, nor with our ally BJP. Where did these things come from? There is no truth in such news going on in the media."

Political analyst Brijesh Shukla believes that the opposition aims to weaken the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) by breaking the allies of BJP and is also trying to sideline Congress in the 2024 Lok Sabha fight. Shukla highlighted that although Congress wants to be the Centre of the opposition's fight against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the opposition has begun their fight without Congress.

Shukla believes that in a recent by-election, BJP has gained in Telangana, due to which KCR is "feeling insecure". "It is dangerous to contest the elections under the leadership of the increasingly weakening Congress as except in three or four states, the Congress has no influence at the moment, so there is no possibility of any loss by going into the fight without it," he said.