The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) which dominated Telangana politics for the last two decades suffered a major jolt in the Lok Sabha elections failing to win a single seat. It dealt a brutal blow on the political ambitions of its chief and former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
For the first time since the party’s (then Telangana Rashtra Samithi) formation in 2001, the BRS will have no representation in the parliament. Compared to 2019, the BRS’ vote share plummeted from 41.71 per cent to 16.69 per cent in 2024.
During the poll campaign KCR announced that after Lok Sabha elections he will focus on national politics and his party will contest in a big way in the forthcoming Maharashtra assembly elections.
However, except for Khammam and Mahabubabad whose candidates were announced first even before the Lok Sabha schedule was released, the BRS was confined to third position in 14 parliamentary constituencies in the State.
Prominently, the party’s poor performance and remaining in third place in KCR’s home turn Medak Lok Sabha seat came as a major jolt for the party leadership. Medak was expected to be a clear win for the BRS as it is the home district of BRS chief K Chandrashekhar Rao as well as of party strongman T Harish Rao.
The party leaders also expected the party to perform well in Karimnagar and Secunderabad where Congress fared badly in Assembly elections. In Malkajgiri constituency, the BRS holds all seven Assembly seats, but could not secure even the second spot.
However, the initial observations by the party leaders attributed the reasons for the poor performance to collusion between both the national parties which fielded weak candidates where their opponents were strong to ensure that the BRS stood no chance.
But, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy openly alleged during the poll campaign that KCR colluded with the BJP leadership promising to facilitate winning of their candidates in Telangana, for which in return he bargained for bail to his daughter K Kavitha. She is presently in Tihar jail for more than two months in Delhi Liquor Scam.
The BRS (then TRS) suffered a similar major defeat in 2009 when the party contested in alliance with the Telugu Desam party and won only two of 9 MP seats it contested, during the Telangana statehood movement.
Earlier, the party contested the General Elections for the first time in 2004 and secured 5 MP seats out of 17 in Telangana region of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. However, in the subsequent bypolls necessitated after the party decided to resign to the posts following delay in formation of Telangana State, the party could retain only 2 seats.
However, after the State formation in 2014, the BRS emerged victorious in 11 of 17 Lok Sabha seats. The party won 9 out of the contested 17 seats in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, a reduction of two seats from the 2014 election.
BRS working president KT Rama Rao stated that the electoral setback was “certainly very disappointing”, but exuded confidence that the party will “continue to toil and rise from the ashes again like a Phoenix”.
He stated that in the last 24 years since TRS (now BRS) was founded, the party and its cadre have seen it all. BRS senior leader and former Minister T Harish Rao also stated that the party withstood numerous ups and downs in the 24 years of its political journey.