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KCR doesn’t receive PM Modi at airport again, BJP accuses him of constitutional impropriety

In his inaugural address at the BJP national executive meeting, Nadda says parties have started opposing the nation in order to oppose Modi.

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Hyderabad:  Telangana’s political climate heated up under thick, dark clouds and rain in Hyderabad Saturday as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took umbrage at Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s decision to receive Opposition’s presidential nominee Yashwant Sinha — but not Prime Minister Narendra Modi — at the airport.

As its top leadership went into a huddle in the Novotel hotel in the hi-tech city, the BJP lambasted KCR for breaking “Constitutional and federal protocol” and “insulting not an individual but the institution”. 

In his inaugural address at the executive meeting, BJP president J.P. Nadda also berated “dynastic” opposition parties for engaging in “destructive” politics as opposed to Modi’s “constructive” one to make India a strong nation.

“Modi ka virodh karte, karte, desh ka virodh karna lage hain (while opposing Modi, they have started opposing the country),” Union minister Smriti Irani quoted Nadda as saying. The BJP accused opposition parties of serving individual families’ interests while Modi served the poor.

Irani said that by not receiving the prime minister at the airport, the Telangana chief minister had “violated maryada (propriety) Constitutionally, politically, [and] socially”.

The prime minister has visited Hyderabad three times in the last five months and KCR sent his animal husbandry minister, Talasani Srinivas Yadav, to receive him on all three occasions. 

In February, the Telangana chief minister was indisposed when the prime minister visited. In May, he flew to Bangalore to meet former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda a couple of hours before Modi arrived in Hyderabad. Saturday, when Modi landed in Hyderabad to attend the BJP’s two-day national executive meeting, it was the animal husbandry minister who received him. KCR and some ministers had, however, gone to the airport to receive Yashwant Sinha.

The TRS has extended support to Sinha for the18 July presidential elections.   

The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti also held a bike rally in what was apparently a show of strength in a city bedecked with posters, banners, cutouts, and cardboards with pictures of top BJP leaders — mostly Modi but also featuring Amit Shah and the party’s chief ministers.


Also Read: Push for 2024? KCR starts multi-state tour, meetings with Kejriwal & Deve Gowda on agenda


Friends-turned-rivals

The relationship between erstwhile friends the BJP and the TRS is getting increasingly bitter as Modi-Shah’s party is emerging as a threat to Telangana ruling party, with the Congress gradually ceding its political space. 

The BJP, which was a marginal player in the state’s politics, has made rapid strides in the state. In November 2020, it won the Dubbaka assembly by-election, defeating the TRS. That it wasn’t a fluke became clear a month later when the BJP went on to win 48 wards, from four in 2016, in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation election. 

After Eatala Rajender, a minister in the KCR cabinet, resigned to join the BJP, the relationship soured further. In what was seen as a prestige battle between the two, Eatala defeated the TRS candidate in the Huzurabad assembly by-election in November 2021. 

Since then, KCR, who used to run the state from his residence, making only the occasional public appearance, has gone on an overdrive, leading agitations against the BJP-led central government on different issues. Buoyed by its successes in assembly by-elections and municipal elections, the BJP has also intensified its efforts to expand its base in the state. Holding the national executive meeting in Hyderabad and showcasing its top leaders from across the country here is part of that strategy. Friday, union ministers and senior party leaders spread out across the state, having food and interacting with the people in every assembly constituency.

(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)


Also Read: KCR vs Modi? How PM’s meeting with corporators fits into BJP’s 2023 Telangana gameplan


 

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