Telangana Chief Minister and TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) is in two minds on elevating his son and IT and Urban Development Minister K.T. Rama Rao (KTR) as the party working president immediately. KCR is supposed to announce the new post for his son at the party’s 16th anniversary rally to be held at Warangal on Thursday, but now there is uncertainty on that. Presently, there is no working president post in TRS. To appoint KTR in the post, the party will have to amend its constitution. The TRS, which held a day-long plenary at Kompally in Hyderabad on Friday skipped the issue even as it passed three more changes to the party constitution. KCR was present when TRS Rajya Sabha member and secretary general K. Keshav Rao moved the changes.
The changes include increasing the term of all party’s elected posts from two to four years, abolishing the existing district committees and replacing them with Assembly constituency level panels and creating new posts of Assembly constituency coordinators. Surprisingly, there was no resolution on creating a new post of working president in the party.
Though the Chief Minister can make an announcement on making his son the working president even without a formal change in the party constitution at the Warangal meeting, he appeared to be not interested in it at this stage, according to sources close to him. “The issue of creating a working president post didn’t figure in our talks,” a senior leader close to KCR told The Sunday Guardian on Saturday. A section of TRS leaders didn’t rule out the possibility of KTR’s elevation at the Warangal meeting. A majority of seniors are of the view that the Chief Minister is unlikely to make the move anytime soon as it is ridden with risky political consequences. The CM is wary of criticism that TRS was adopting dynastic politics as well as resentment from his nephew and Irrigation Minister T. Harish Rao to the move.
Harish Rao, son of KCR’s sister, is senior to KTR and was in TRS since its inception in 2001. Harish was instrumental in building the party in the early stages.