Kavitha, daughter of former Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), has announced a new political outfit and projected herself as an ‘Amma’ figure for the state’s four crore people, invoking the legacy of late Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa.
Telangana is currently ruled by the Congress under Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, with KCR’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) as the main opposition. KCR had earlier renamed the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) as BRS, citing ambitions in national politics.
According to the report, KCR suffered major setbacks in the December 2023 Assembly election and again in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, and has largely stayed away from public appearances for nearly two years. Amid this backdrop, Kavitha had repeatedly criticised her brother K.T. Rama Rao and relative Harish Rao, following which she was removed from the party and later levelled a series of allegations against the BRS leadership.
About 10 months after her expulsion, Kavitha has now launched the Telangana Rashtra Sena, reviving the TRS name that KCR had dropped. At the party’s launch, she directly attacked her father for the first time, alleging he had become “like a robot” and was under the influence of “wolves and foxes” within the party.
Kavitha said she would follow Jayalalithaa’s path and be an ‘Amma’ to Telangana’s people, placing free education, employment and healthcare among her key promises. The report notes that several parties with ‘Telangana’ in their name have emerged and disappeared in the past, raising questions on whether this new formation will succeed or split opposition votes.
