New Delhi: : Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao this morning to wish him on his birthday. Mr Rao, or KCR, thanked the PM and “nothing else was discussed said an official from the Chief Minister’s office, according to NDTV news report.
This is their first meeting since KCR declined to meet or greet PM Modi when he visited Hyderabad on February 5 to dedicate a statue to Saint Ramanujacharya. The Chief Minister had stated that he was unable to attend due to health concerns.
In recent weeks, KCR has excoriated the Prime Minister and the BJP government multiple times, even urging people to “throw the BJP into the Bay of Bengal”.
His attacks on PM Modi have been far more trenchant, even personal.
In one of his strongest critiques of PM Modi, KCR remarked to reporters that he “dressed for elections”.
“If it is election time, he has to grow a beard and appear like Rabindranath Tagore. Arrey baap re. If it is Tamil Nadu, he must wear a lungi (sic), what is this?…What does the country get with these kind of gimmicks, what does the country get? If it is the Punjab election, he will wear a pagdi (turban). In Manipur, it will be a Manipuri cap, in Uttarakhand, it will be another topi (cap), how many caps like this?” he had told reporters just before the PM’s visit to Hyderabad.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin also dialed to greet his Telangana counterpart on his birthday.
In December, KCR had met Stalin in Chennai they were all present with their family and other politician. There were reports that they discussed the possibility of a grouping that could take on the BJP in 2024.
KCR has also been invited to lunch on Sunday by Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, whose Shiv Sena broke off decades-old ties with the BJP in 2019.
A meeting with Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is also expected soon. At a press conference on February 13, KCR said Mamata Banerjee had called him and said she would come to Hyderabad to meet him, “aap mujhe dosa khilayiye (please treat me to dosa)”.
Before the 2019 election, KCR had visited Tamil Nadu to meet Stalin; Odisha to meet Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik; and West Bengal to meet Mamata Banerjee. Those efforts did not yield any political results but the regional parties look eager to give it another shot.
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