Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav called on Telangana chief minister and BRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday in Hyderabad, a day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, while addressing a rally in the state, dubbed BRS as “BJP Rishtedar Samiti” and plainly refused to engage with “BJP's B-team” in any form.
While Akhilesh is among the 32 opposition party leaders, including Rahul, who met in Patna on 23 June to firm up a front against the BJP in the 2024 general elections, KCR remained away.
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Before his meeting with KCR, Akhilesh, in a brief interaction with reporters upon his arrival in Hyderabad, said that “all the parties have the common aim of freeing the country from BJP.”
“I can say something only after the meeting. But we all have the one target of ejecting the BJP from power. We cannot alter/deviate from that objective,” Akhilesh said.
A statement from the CMO later said KCR's discussion with Akhilesh was on national politics and related issues.
KCR and Akhilesh had met a few times in the recent past and the former Uttar Pradesh CM had also attended the Bharat Rashtra Samiti's massive rally in Khammam in January, held to mark the party's transition from Telangana Rashtra Samiti in line with KCR's national ambitions.
The lunch meeting now at KCR's camp office cum official residence Pragati Bhavan comes even as Rahul revealed that the Congress wanted to boycott the opposition parties' meet last month in Patna if the BRS was to attend it.
“We said we would boycott the meet if BRS attends as it is BJP's B team. We cannot sit alongside such a party. We can never come to any agreement with it,” Rahul said at the Congress public meeting in Khammam on Sunday, held in the run-up to Telangana assembly polls later this year.
The Congress is in direct electoral fight with the ruling BRS in Telangana.