Innovative campaign, KCR prop up BRS campaign

The bus tour was a double impact move. While one was the building up of mass support against the State government’s apathy towards farmers, the other was to inject some much needed vigour into the party cadre.

Hyderabad: The odds were against them when the Lok Sabha battle was announced, but now, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi appears to be fast gaining ground as the big day on May 13 approaches, courtesy its top three names leading from the front and turning the tables in favour of the party.

Earlier, soon after the Assembly debacle, the party had found itself in a crisis, with not just senior leaders slanting towards parties in power, but also five of the nine MPs that the party sent to the Lok Sabha in 2019 deserting it.

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However, showing critics that he might have been down temporarily but certainly not out, founder president K Chandrashekhar Rao came out all guns blazing, brushing off the predicted impact of the deserters, who in his words were like sunflowers, turning towards where the sun (power) was.

What started off with his ‘Polam Bata’, visiting unseasonal rain hit farmers and those who lost crops due to the State government’s failure in ensuring irrigation water on time, took the form of ‘Poru Bata’ as Chandrashekhar Rao took to the streets with his bus tour, both which helped the party reach out to the struggling farmers.

The bus tour was a double impact move. While one was the building up of mass support against the State government’s apathy towards farmers, the other was to inject some much needed vigour into the party cadre.

The impact was all the more visible in Khammam and Kothagudem districts, where BRS candidates were trailing behind in the campaign, but saw their graphs rising after the the massively attended roadshows and the party president’s fiery speeches, in ‘vintage KCR’ style.

Even as the chants of “CM, CM” grew louder wherever KCR went on his ‘Telangana Pragathi Ratham’, as the bus was named, the two other big names in the party, KT Rama Rao and T Harish Rao, added more muscle to the party’s campaign in their own styles.

While working president Rama Rao is shuttling across the State, talking to the party cadre and the public, lashing out with equal force at both the Congress in the State and the BJP at the Centre, Harish Rao started off a trend that other BRS leaders too are now using effectively.

Reportedly suggested by Chandrashekhar Rao himself, the trend saw Harish Rao arranging large screens at the meetings he addressed, to screen videos of speeches by A Revanth Reddy during his Assembly election campaign.

The videos, which showed Revanth Reddy exhorting farmers to rush to take loans up to Rs.2 lakh and not to pay and also promising that he would waive off all these when he assumed power on December 9, were followed by Harish Rao’s question on whether these loans were waived off.

The same tactic was used for all the promises made by Revanth Reddy and other Congress leaders, while in Medak, it targeted the BJP’s M Raghunandan Rao, whose promises when he was the Dubbak MLA and before when he campaigned for the bypoll were screened and questioned.

The technique worked, with the videos adding authenticity to the BRS campaign much more than mere words or allegations would do.

Finally, though the Congress appeared to have scored a brownie point when its complaint managed to get the Election Commission of India impose a 48-hour ban on Chandrashekhar Rao on Wednesday, BRS leaders believe the move will actually help the BRS.

They point out that since Revanth Reddy has been using foul and abusive language repeatedly against Chandrashekhar Rao, the hypocrisy of the Congress was exposed with its complaint against KCR. And this, BRS leaders say, will only build public sentiment in favour of Chandrashekhar Rao.

To drive home the point, the BRS is also pinpointing how the ECI was selective in its actions by acting against KCR while ignoring genuine complaints against Congress leaders like Revanth Reddy and Rahul Gandhi and the BJP Twitter handle as well.