Seeking to paint both the BJP and Congress with the same brush for failing to put the country on high growth, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said the proposed Federal Front would give a new direction to development agenda and demonstrate to the world what India could do.

“For 70 years, the Congress and BJP have ruled the country. But what have they done? India lags behind on so many fronts. Farmers’ suicides still continue,” he said at the 17th plenary of his Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) at Kompally on the city outskirts.

I warn Congress and BJP leaders to be alert as a federal front is going to be formed. KCR has started a process, On 29th I am going to meet DMK's Stalin. This country will see a new rule in the coming months: Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao pic.twitter.com/9ux8kZpimO

— ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2018

Although he outlined how the Federal Front—a perceived alternative to both the BJP and the Congress—could transform the country’s infrastructure, irrigation, agriculture and industries sectors, he did not spell out which parties would join the front.

“We will set off tremors that will jolt the two national parties,” KCR, as the chief minister is known in political circles, said.  

He had first mooted the idea of an alternative front in March last and met TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and JD (S) chief HD Deve Gowda to take it forward.

The TRS’ plenary, which coincided with the party’s foundation, adopted a unanimous resolution, authorising KCR to take further steps to forge the non-Congress, non-BJP front at national level.

Asserting that farmers’ welfare and infrastructure development would be the cornerstones of the Federal Front’s agenda, he said, “We will place before the country our plans to irrigate every acre in the country. We will show how this can be done in a matter of six to seven years.”

The Congress and BJP owed an answer to the people as to why they had failed to provide even the basic facilities, he said, blaming the two national parties for the unresolved inter-state river water disputes and farmers’ suicides.

A political resolution adopted at the plenary said that KCR had begun taking steps to bring together like-minded parties. However, it did not specify who those parties are.

 

“It is inevitable that the direction of politics in the country will veer towards a qualitative change,” the resolution moved by the party general secretary and Rajya Sabha member K Kesava Rao said.

“What our leader has proposed is not an opportunistic cobbling together of a new political outfit but a genuine alternative. We are not trying to seek power. It is an alternative agenda,” Rao said. 

He claimed India had so far emerged a unitary state, instead of a “true union of states” as envisioned by the Indian Constitution.   

“It is time to realise that development of states will lead to nation’s development,” the senior TRS leader said.