Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) president K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) Sunday agreed to discuss unification of regional and like-minded parties in the country, although they refrained from announcing any pre-poll alignments immediately.
Both the leaders met at Naveen Niwas, residence of Naveen Patnaik, to build a consensus on brining regional parties together. “We discussed the Polavaram issue and how to carry that forward and also 33 per cent women reservation demand in Parliament and state assemblies. We will take the talks forward. We also discussed friendship among like-minded parties among other things. We have not discussed any equations for Parliament elections… Let’s see,” said Patnaik.
The Telangana Chief Minister met Patnaik at his residence here to “discuss a number of issues” which are being speculated in political circles as a bid for unification of regional parties ahead of Lok Sabha elections and their likely ramifications.
While Patnaik denied any such moves, KCR called for a broad unification of regional parties after meeting the BJD supremo during his Odisha visit.
“There is a dire need for unification of regional parties in the country. We strongly believe that there has to be an alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress in the country,” said KCR.
The leaders have just started the dialogue process, added Rao. Nothing concrete has emerged yet, he asserted.
“The country needs a change, a qualitative change for which dialogue process has begun. We are doing our efforts. However, nothing has come out concrete so far,” Rao said.
“We need to talk with more leaders. We just started the dialogue and we will meet again to discuss how to take things forward. There is a need to talk to more people,” indicated Rao.