There are very few people who are termed as chanakya in politics today (i.e one who plays a smart game) and KCR is one of those members. He is one of most experienced politicians in India. He looks polite in nature and has friendly relations with every politician in India. But the way he does things in politics is quite interesting. Let’s have a look of his political judgements since Modi came into power.
2014 – 2019 elections:
He was in full support of Modi in his first term and his party members favoured BJP in lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha mostly. But started to have talks with oppsition leaders in the name of federal front. The talks didn’t materialise for whatever reasons but that actually benefited him. Opposition with the support of Congress formed a coalition team naming it Mahagatbandhan but failed drastically in 2019 elections. As KCR was not part of this, his image was clean when it came to his state election. Subsequently KCR’s party (TRS) won the state election with huge majority. But KCR saw a new problem arising. The BJP’s rise in Telangana politics. Although Amit Shah (then the president of BJP) knew their party would be easily defeated in elections but has taken a decision to contest in all 119 constituencies of Telangana just to show people that BJP is the next option for the people. KCR ignored this and as he expected BJP got only one seat in state elections. But things changed when the results of Rajya Sabha were out. His party was of full confidence that they would get 15 out of 17 seats in Rajya Sabha elections. Instead they got 9 seats,BJP got 4 seats, Congress got 3 seats and AIMIM got 1 seat. This sudden change of voters mind has made KCR to review his strategy.
Note: TRS win in 2019 state elections was mostly due it’s governance. KCR tremendous monitoring of works which would effect a normal person directly was a key thing.
Strategy after 2019 elections:
His strategy now is to observe BJP’s move so that it doesn’t effect his party’s vote share. Though he is maintaining diplomatic relations with center, he started critising BJP’s moves in the state by not naming center any where until recently.
CAA-NRC-NPR issue:
Till the local elections in the state were not completed neither KCR nor his party workers publicly issued a statement on CAA-NRC-NPR issue. After the elections and TRS winning almost all seats, KCR in a press conference openly criticised CAA-NRC issue and also said that his party was secular party (that’s because his party’s alliance with AIMIM and the majority of voters in Telangana are secular). Recently the assembly also passed a resolution against it. He also criticised government for allocating less funds to Telangana under 15th Finance Commission report and also on Center’s delay in releasing GST funds to state.
What Kejriwal is learning from KCR’s politics
In the same time frame (i.e 2014 – 2019 elections) Kejriwal was against Modi and criticised his decisions mostly. He was even part of Mahagatbandhan. But after 2019 elections he got to know politics is for smarter people. He started to focus on the state elections which were just nine months away then. He started to focus on things which would have a direct impact on voter. That’s governance which KCR had already experimented and was successful in Telangana elections recently. He implemented the same procedure as per Delhi voters needs. It’s like remaking a hit film by changing the screenplay as per the local audience taste. The result at last would be similar if the director of the movie had not destroyed the essence of the original one. In same way Kejriwal succeeded by attaining huge majority in state elections.
On CAA-NRC-NPR issue:
Kejriwal silence before elections was something similar to KCR’s stance from 2014 -2019 period. But even after elections was something because of Delhi politics.The politics of Delhi is not similar to that of Telangana. Majority of voters of Delhi were not really Delhi people. They were from different parts of the country. It’s hard to tell what was their take on the issue. So what would be the best thing, to follow the previous stance. Recently after elections he even met Modi and Amit Shah. Arrest of Kejriwal is something controversial after the meeting. But we can see the change Arvind Kejriwal has taken. To become smartest politician than that of leader of people. I would say KCR’s political stance in NDA 1 is now Kejriwal’s stance in NDA 2.
Mark Twain a famous American humorist once said,
Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed
This is what Kejriwal has learnt from being a bureaucrat with a set of principles to becoming one of the smartest politicians.
– ANJAN KUMAR
(Opinion expressed by the author is his personal. The Generalist Insights take no responsibility of the opinion expressed.)
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