Crucial TRS meeting on Tuesday to gear up for Assembly polls

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) will hold a crucial meeting on Tuesday to discuss the strategy to strengthen the organisation and counter the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the run up to the next Assembly elections.A joint meeting of TRS Legislative Party (MLAs and MLCs), Parliamentary Party (MPs) and TRS State Executive will be held at Telangana Bhavan. It will be presided over by Chief Minister and TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao.The meeting is likely to discuss a strategy to gear up the party for next year’s Assembly elections. It is also likely to analyse the party’s performance in the recent by-election to Munugode Assembly seat.The TRS won the by-election with its candidate K. Prabhakar Reddy defeating BJP’s Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy by a margin of over 10,000 votes.The party was expecting a majority of over 20,000 votes and the meeting may discuss the reasons for shortcomings and how to overcome them in future.With the BJP going aggressive with the goal of capturing power in 2023, the TRS chief is likely to give directions to the leaders on how to counter the saffron surge.The decision to convene the key meeting came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Telangana. While addressing BJP workers at Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad, Modi had launched a bitter attack on TRS and claimed that ‘Lotus’ (BJP’s poll symbol) is all set to bloom in Telangana.At Tuesday’s meeting, KCR may give guidelines to TRS leaders on effectively countering BJP by informing people about a slew of development and welfare schemes launched by the state government, highlighting the Centre’s discriminatory attitude towards the state and the Centre’s failure to fulfill the commitments.Since this is the first meeting after the arrest of three alleged agents of BJP while trying to ‘buy’ four MLAs of TRS, KCR is also expected to caution the legislators against the BJP’s attempts to lure them with offers of huge cash, key positions and other benefits.