TRS 2.0 in Making as CM K Chandrasekhar Rao Eyes on 2023 Assembly Elections

Hyderabad: A TRS 2.0 is in the making in Telangana as the ruling outfit led by the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is returning to the drawing board with an eye on the 2023 Assembly elections.

TRS laid the foundation stone for party offices in districts Monday last, and on Thursday it would launch a membership drive.

The chief minister on Wednesday also appointed senior journalist and writer Tankasala Ashok as advisor to the government. Ashok, who worked with leading newspapers including the Indian Express group in the past, will be looking after inter-state relations, an official release said.

The BJP, considered a marginal player in the country's youngest state not long ago, bagging four Lok Sabha seats out of the total 17 in the State in the recent general elections has set alarm bells ringing in the TRS camp.

Riding on pro-Telangana sentiments, the TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samiti) won Assembly elections in 2014 and returned to power last year.

Party leaders said TRS ideology centred around separate statehood for Telangana has run its course, with the formation of the State, and there is now a need for building a new narrative, a new philosophy, as they put it.

"We will strengthen our party in Telangana on the lines of DMK and AIADMK in Tamil Nadu," a senior TRS leader, privy to the outfit's strategy, told PTI.

Now, the idea is to "indoctrinate" the party cadre and then the common man on themes around pride, culture, history, literature and dialect of Telangana and why TRS fought for separate statehood, along with its development agenda.

The TRS, which claims a membership of about 45 lakh, is also planning to have regular "political classes" for its leaders.

On the membership drive, a party functionary said it would be an aggressive campaign and, unlike in the past, every TRS worker would target each household in villages for enrollment.

"With regard to strengthening the party, we will educate our cadre, common man on the achievements of the government and why people should vote again for TRS in 2023 (elections)," the TRS leader said.

Another TRS leader sought to brush aside the performance of the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections, saying it's only due to the "complacency and over-confidence" of the TRS, along with the Modi wave, that it could win four seats.