The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) continues to face a turbulent political phase, with successive electoral setbacks and growing internal discord compounding the party’s challenges.
The party, which lost power to the Congress in November 2023 elections and could not win a single seat in the last year’s Lok Sabha elections, suffered a serious blow after the defeat in the recent Jubilee Hills by-elections.
While the successive defeats have affected the party’s morale, what is hurting the party leadership is the sharp and incisive comments from party president K Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter and Telangana Jagruthi president Kalvakuntla Kavitha.
The BRS leaders, in their attempt to counter her political activities, have reportedly ended up enhancing her image. Their frequent statements attacking Kavitha have, according to observers, inadvertently strengthened her political narrative.
The situation escalated after senior leader and former minister Singireddy Niranjan Reddy made remarks comparing Kavitha to a rotten brinjal and used an offensive metaphor suggesting something “bursting.”
Kavitha responded sharply, warning him that reckless comments could “boomerang” and issued a stern “mass warning.” Her confrontational posture has placed BRS leaders on the defensive.
Kavitha is also strategically linking every criticism against her to the faction aligned with senior leader T Harish Rao, putting him and his supporters in an embarrassing position.
The BRS leaders have been forced to clarify their statements repeatedly as Kavitha positions herself as a victim of internal targeting.
Party sources say her ultimate political objective may be to corner Harish Rao, but the aggressive methods she is employing have left many BRS leaders anxious about their own political futures.
Some reportedly fear that continued infighting could further erode the party’s base at a time when it is already struggling to recover from successive electoral setbacks.
