Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao was examining different approaches to the June 15 meeting of non-BJP parties convened by Trinamul Congress president and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Delhi to discuss the opposition strategy for the Presidential election, party sources said on Monday.
According to the sources, Chandrashekar Rao wold attend the meeting if the Congress abstained. If the top Congress leadership attended, then TRS working president and IT minister K.T.Rama Rao would go to the meeting.
The names of TRS MPs Nama Nageshwara Rao and K. Keshava Rao and former MP B. Vinod Kumar were being considered to attend the meeting in the event of Rama Rao not being able to attend due to prior commitments.
Banerjee not only wrote to Chandrashekar Rao on Saturday along with 21 leaders of non-BJP parties, inviting him to the meeting, but also spoke to him over the phone on the same day and personally invited him.
However, the CM is yet to take a decision on whether to attend the meeting or not. According to party sources, he was having second thoughts after Banerjee invited Congress president Sonia Gandhi to the meeting: Chandrashekar Rao is not keen to share a dais with the Congress, sources said.
As of now, no CM has announced that he had accepted Banerjee’s invite. There are reports that Shiv Sena president and Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray would not attend the meeting as he would be in Ayodhya on that day. He would depute a party senior leaders to attend the meeting.
Chandrashekar Rao too is planning to depute a senior party leader to the meeting, as abstaining would send the wrong message and also give scope for
political rivals to accuse the TRS of running away from a meeting of non-BJP parties while claiming that he was waging a battle against the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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