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Seeking to expand beyond Telangana, the the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) on Wednesday changed its name to Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS).
Over two decades after the founding of the party with the objective of carving out a separate Telangana from Andhra Pradesh, the party adopted a unanimous resolution at its general body meeting in Hyderabad, rechristening it as BRS.
Now, the goal is to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party and emerge as a national force to reckon with, bringing together like-minded parties.
In the presence of Janata Dal-Secular leader H D Kumaraswamy, Tamil Nadu’s Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) leader Thol Thirumavalavan, TRS president and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao proposed the name change resolution and it was unanimously passed at the meeting.
Rao’s announcement of the name change was welcomed by party functionaries with a big round of applause and amid chants of ‘KCR Zindabad and TRS Zindabad’.
The change of name is to expand the party’s activities nationwide and the party’s constitution is also amended accordingly, Rao said.
The TRS rank and file, who gathered outside the Telangana Bhavan, the TRS headquarters in Hyderabad, went ecstatic and burst crackers and distributed sweets soon after the announcement.
‘Desh ke neta KCR’ chants reverberated and similar slogans were seen in posters.
‘Desh ke neta KCR’, ‘Dear India he is coming’, and ‘KCR is on the way’, were among the slogans prominently displayed in banners, that could be seen in and around the venue of the meet besides other locations in Hyderabad.
Rao, who has been very critical of the BJP for about a year, is expected to step up his attack against the saffron party and its government at the Centre.
Significantly, the name change move comes against the backdrop of next year’s Telangana Legislative Assembly election and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
