Hyderabad: A poor show in Telangana’s 2023 assembly elections and persistent demands from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi rank and file to revert to the party’s original name has pressed working president KT Rama Rao (KTR) to announce that the party is likely to call itself Telangana Rashtra Samithi once again.
This decision, however, is still to be finalised by party founder and former chief minister of Telangana K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR), his son KTR announced as part of his plan to undertake a padayatra across the state to strengthen the organisation.
“Yes it was a mistake to change the name of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) into BRS before the last assembly elections. We had lost the Telangana identity with that decision. Now, there is a demand for returning to our original name. As working president, I will ensure I implement this,” KTR said while addressing party workers in Mancherial district.
KTR’s indication about reverting to the TRS name comes just days after his sister and Telangana Jagruti president K. Kavitha indicated that the TRS name could be utilised by any interested individual or party since it was open for others to use. Many agree that apprehensions of Kavitha attempting to use the TRS name for her new political outfit in some form impelled KTR and the senior leaders to reclaim it.
TRS rebranded itself in October 2022 as BRS with an aim to reach out to a wider audience in the country eight years after forming the government for the first time since Telangana’s creation in 2014. The party’s cultural wing Telangana Jagruti, which was then led by K. Kavitha, KCR’s now-estranged daughter, had opened offices in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and a few other states to aid the party’s expansion in the border states. But with BRS winning just 39 seats in the 119-member assembly and 10 elected representatives joining the winning Congress party, many questions were raised on the reasons that compelled the name change.
‘Fundamentally flawed’
Prof. M. Kodandarama Reddy, a Telangana movement activist and politician who shouldered the burden of state formation along with KCR, called the name change “fundamentally flawed”.
“By changing the name to BRS, KCR severed the umbilical connection he had with the name Telangana. His party was an outcome of the Telangana movement and by letting his ambition get ahead of himself, the cause, and the people of the state, KCR has distanced himself from the very ideology he stood for and advocated,” Prof. Kodandaram told ThePrint.
Senior party leaders who ThePrint spoke to echoed Prof. Kodandaram’s opinion and admitted to bringing up the name reversal issue several times before the party’s working committee. “We have been openly talking about it at our meetings with people in our constituencies, villages, and to the party cadre. TRS and Telangana are synonymous with one another and even to date the fight for a separate state is an emotional issue for us. The name change to BRS has not been easy for us to assimilate,” said Tula Uma, a senior leader who has been with the party since its inception.
Party functionaries of the BRS said that the name change could be effected just before the next state elections in 2028, and were confident of the Election Commission of India (ECI) issuing an order in their favour. B. Vinod Kumar explained that the ECI holds a party’s name and symbol in abeyance for two consecutive elections even after the rebranding is completed to avoid any confusion in the voters’ minds.
Election authorities in Telangana, however, clarified to ThePrint that there were no rules disallowing any individual or party to utilise names and symbols of parties that were non-existent. “As per Section 29 A of the Representation of the People’s Act, 1951, a party has to publish its new name and symbol in national and local newspapers for two consecutive days for any concerned parties to raise objections. It is the ECI’s discretion finally to allow or refrain anyone from using an old party name or symbol,” a former state election commissioner said.
Kavitha was suspended from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in September 2025 after she accused her cousins and party leaders T. Harish Rao and J. Santosh Kumar of tarnishing the party’s image over the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project. She also alleged that they were involved in ousting her from the party and subsequently announced her decision to form a new party.
She sought the ECI’s permission in also registering the name ‘Telangana Praja Jagruti’ and applied for registration under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, on 23 January 2026. The launch of her party, including the symbol and flag, is expected on 25 April, as indicated by her earlier.
Reacting to her party and the use of the TRS name, her brother KTR, now her rival, took an indirect dig at her at the same Mancherial party meeting, saying individuals should not create distress within families. “Even if they don’t do good, they must not make their parents weep,” he said.
(Edited By Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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