After Rahul's 'no ties with TRS' remark, KTR hits back: 'Wannabe PM should first...'

A day after Congress MP Rahul Gandhi said there is “absolutely no question” of a coalition with TRS, the latter hit back. TRS leader KT Rama Rao (popularly known as KTR) on Tuesday said that Gandhi should first try to win in Amethi before trying to criticise his party and Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao's (KCR) national ambitions.

“International leader Rahul Gandhi who can't even win his own parliament seat in Amethi ridicules Telangana CM KCR's national party ambition. Wannabe PM should first convince his people to elect him as an MP,” KTR, who is KCR's son and Telangana minister, tweeted.

Gandhi had contested from Uttar Pradesh's Amethi constituency and Kerala's Wayanad in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He lost the first to BJP's Smriti Irani, but won from the second.

At a press conference in Kothur, Telangana, on Monday amid the Congress party's ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, Gandhi was asked about KCR changing the name of his party from Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) to Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS). To this, the former Congress chief said the “reality” is that only the grand old party's “ideology…can defeat that of the BJP”.

“If KCR wants to form a national party, it is fine. If he wants to form a global party, contest elections in China, in the UK, that is also fine. But the reality is it's only the Congress ideology which can defeat the ideology of the BJP,” Gandhi said.

He further stated that the Congress party is a “democratic party” and it is in its “DNA” to not run a “dictatorship”. “Recently, the president of our party was elected democratically. I am wondering when RSS, BJP, TRS and other political parties will hold elections,” the Wayanad MP said.

The war of words continued after Congress veteran Jairam Ramesh at a press briefing earlier today clarified Gandhi's comments, saying there is nothing wrong in them. He said according to Gandhi, KCR's party can become even “Global Rashtra Samithi” but Congress has got nothing to do with it.

Ramesh added that KCR can do whatever he wants to do as India is a democratic country, and Congress is a not a “Nizam Shahi Party”. “We know that here in Hyderabad eighth Nizam sits,” he said in an apparent to the Telangana chief minister.

(With inputs from ANI and PTI)