No alliance with TRS, Rahul tells Telangana Congress leaders at Delhi meet

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday told the party leaders from Telangana in a meeting at his residence that there will be no alliance with the K Chandrashekar Rao-led Telangana Rashtra Samithi in the state.

Earlier in the evening, Rahul Gandhi met about 30 senior leaders of the Telangana Congress including PCC Chief Revanth Reddy, AICC Incharge of Telangana Manickam Tagore and AICC General Secretary organisation KC Venugopal.

According to the sources, the meeting went on for nearly three hours in which Rahul Gandhi made it clear that the party would not forge any alliance with the TRS which is currently in power in the state led by Chief Minister KCR.

The Congress party is trying hard to make a come back in the state but is yet to succeed.

After the meeting, Reddy said, "We held a discussion with Rahul ji over various issues including farmers, inflation, fuel price hike and paddy procurement etc. Rahul ji will visit Telangana this month. No alliance...Congress will fight against TRS and BJP in Telangana."

This is the second meeting with the Telangana leaders within a week which comes at a time when KCR is making efforts to bring all the anti-BJP and anti-Congress parties on one platform as part of his national ambitions for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

However, with the announcement by Rahul Gandhi, it is likely to make a national impact as KCR is said to be a major player in South India who is not a part of the NDA and is continuously pitching for an alternative to the BJP at the national level.

Notably, in the last Assembly elections in 2018 in Telangana, Congress had an alliance with the Telugu Desam Party, however, could not stop the return of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi's KCR government.

Earlier last month, Telangana Congress chief Revanth Reddy dismissed possibilities of forging an alliance with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi party and said the grand old party will form an alliance with any party but Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's as "he is not trustworthy".

"Congress would not forge an alliance with KCR and his party TRS at any cost because he is not trustworthy. We have seen him in 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019. We can trust any other leader or party, but not KCR and TRS," Reddy told ANI.