TRS is now officially BRS, ECI informs CM KCR of approval

The Election Commission of India on Thursday formally approved the change of name of the TRS to BRS.

Hyderabad: The Telangana Rashtra Samithi will officially become the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) at 1.20 pm on Friday. This is after the Election Commission of India on Thursday gave its consent to the change in the name of the party taken by the TRS general body on October 5 this year.

The occasion will also mark the formal entry of party President and Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao onto the national political arena, in continuation of his call for a fresh change in Indian politics, and to bring to an end the politics of hate and divisiveness being championed by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

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The Commission on Thursday wrote a letter to party President and Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, informing him that it had accepted the party general body’s decision. A notification in this regard would be issued soon.

Following this, Chandrashekhar Rao directed party leaders for making arrangements at Telangana Bhavan on Friday to announce the formation of BRS. He will sign the official letter on behalf of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi and reply to the EC’s letter at the muhurat of 1.20 pm. Chandrashekhar Rao will later unveil the party flag and is also likely to share the party’s action plan.

Incidentally, December 9 coincides with the first positive step towards the formation of a separate Telangana State. It was on this day in 2009 that the then union Home Minister P Chidambaram announced that the process for forming the State of Telangana would be initiated. It also marks Chandrashekhar Rao ending his 11-day hunger strike at NIMS hospital.

Following orders from the party leadership, all party State general body members, district presidents, Ministers, MPs, MLAs and MLCs will reach the party headquarters at Telangana Bhavan and participate in the ceremony. Chairpersons of Zilla Parishads, DCCBs, DCMSs and various State-level corporations along with presidents of district Rythu Bandhu Samithis have also been asked to participate in the programme.

The party’s MPs, who were attending the Parliament session in Delhi, have already started off to Hyderabad on Thursday evening to participate in the party formation ceremony. Meanwhile, party cadres are making arrangements for grand celebration of the party’s transformation across the State and several parts of the country.

The birth of BRS

It was on October 5, on the auspicious occasion of Dasara, that TRS President and Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao announced the new national political entity, 21 years after the TRS was launched in April 2001 to achieve the separate State of Telangana.

The TRS, which was formed to fight for separate Statehood and to end the decades of discrimination meted out to the people of Telangana in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, led to a surge in the momentum in the movement and saw the party, in an alliance with the Congress, winning 26 assembly and five Lok Sabha seats in the 2004 elections, thereby making its mark on the political firmament.

For nearly 14 years, the TRS played a crucial role in the Statehood movement in association with civil organisations, employees and other like-minded forces. The party succeeded in drawing nation-wide attention to the issue and went on to achieve Telangana State. In 2014, the party emerged as a strong political force in the State by winning the first elections to the Telangana State Legislature. The party returned to power for a second term in December 2018, with an even higher majority.

After fighting with the Centre against the discrimination being meted out to Telangana in terms of funds and projects, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, who relentlessly questioned the failures of the Congress as well as the BJP, decided to go national with the BRS with the aim of taking the Telangana model of development across the country.

His second major mission, the first being for Telangana, was for India, he announced, and to fight the communal and divisive politics of the BJP.

The move has already won the people’s mandate, as was seen from the results of the Munugode by-poll, when he had told the voters in Munugode that they had got the chance to create history by presenting the party with its first victory since the BRS was announced, and thus, to set the BRS juggernaut rolling. That journey begins, officially, on Friday.