TRS chief meets HDK, other regional leaders to resume efforts on non-Cong non-BJP front

Bengaluru: Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who has been advocating formation of a non-Congress, non-BJP front, is planning to resume efforts on the proposal.

Rao is mulling meeting regional leaders, including Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, DMK chief M K Stalin and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, to discuss the Centre-state relations and states’ empowerment, among other issues, TRS sources said Wednesday.

They claimed that after the Lok Sabha elections, neither the NDA nor the UPA would be in a position to form government at the Centre.

The non-Congress, non-BJP leaders like Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, YSR Congress Party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh and Rao in Telangana would together win about 150 of the 180 Lok Sabha seats in the five states, the TRS sources claimed.

Rao, who has been advocating formation of a federal front, had met Stalin, Kumaraswamy, Banerjee and Patnaik earlier.

Alleging both the BJP and the Congress have failed to meet the peoples’ expectations despite being in power for the longest period since Independence, Rao, during his campaign for Lok Sabha polls, had favoured the formation of a federal front government at the Centre.

Rao’s Telangana Rashtra Samithi had returned to power with a thumping majority after the Telangana Assembly elections held in December last year, winning 88 of the total 119 elected seats.