Rs 300 Crore Contract With Prashant Kishor? What "Best Friend" KCR Said

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, popularly known as KCR, on Monday announced that he is in talks with political strategist Prashant Kishor "to bring a national change", capping off months of attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP which rules at the centre.

"I am in talks with Prashant Kishor to bring a national change. Prashant Kishor is working with me on this. Who can have a problem with this? Why are they seeing him as a bomb? Why are they crying?" he said, speaking at a news conference in Hyderabad.

Rubbishing suggestions that he had signed a Rs 300-crore contract with Mr Kishor, KCR said, "Prashant Kishor is my best friend for the last 7-8 years. He has never worked for money. He is not a paid worker. I am sorry you don't understand his commitment to the country."

Mr Kishor reportedly met KCR at his farmhouse outside Hyderabad last month, setting off speculation amid the Telangana Chief Minister's efforts to cobble a front against the BJP ahead of the 2024 general elections.

For months now, there has been a conspicuous escalation in KCR's attacks on PM Modi and the BJP. Last month, when the Prime Minister visited Hyderabad for the launch of a statue of Saint Ramanujacharya, Mr Rao skipped meeting him, citing health reasons.

Days before that, he roasted the Prime Minister, saying he "dresses for elections" and his budget is all "style without substance".

"If it is election time, he has to grow a beard and appear like Rabindranath Tagore. Arrey baap re. If it is Tamil Nadu, he must wear a lungi (sic), what is this? What does the country get with these kinds of gimmicks? If it is the Punjab election, he will wear a pagdi (turban). In Manipur, it will be a Manipuri cap, in Uttarakhand, it will be another topi (cap), how many caps like this?" he told reporters.

More recently, KCR has held a series of meetings with opposition leaders like Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, his ally Sharad Pawar, and Jharkhand's Hemant Soren. Mr Rao has said he is keen on hosting a meeting of leaders of regional parties in Hyderabad.

Sources have said Prashant Kishor's political consultancy team I-PAC has begun the groundwork for KCR for the assembly polls in December next year and a formal contract has also been signed, though its details are not known yet.

Mr Kishor is credited with successfully handling the campaign of MK Stalin-led DMK in Tamil Nadu and YS Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh, besides that of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in last year's elections versus the unmitigated might of the BJP.

The Bengal Chief Minister is also one of the regional leaders Mr Rao has been cultivating for his anti-BJP front, along with Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar and Janata Dal-Secular patriarch HD Deve Gowda.

Separately, Mr Kishor too is believed to have the ear of Ms Banerjee via her nephew and lieutenant Abhishek Banerjee, while his I-PAC continues to work for the Trinamool in Bengal and helps it expand its national footprint.