In keeping with the party’s national ambitions, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) is busy constructing the party’s Delhi headquarters on 1,200 square metres of land at Vasant Vihar in South Delhi. Telangana Chief Minister and party supremo K. Chandrasekhar Rao laid the foundation stone of the building last September and the work is likely to finish in eight months or so.
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Speaking to The Hindu, Vemula Prashant Reddy, Telangana Minister for Roads, Buildings and Housing Department, said the decision to build the party headquarters in Delhi was prompted by the party’s growing ambitions to be a player in national politics.
“We are staking a claim in national politics, and our leader decided that we needed a headquarters in Delhi to announce that intention,” he said.
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The land, allotted by the Urban Development Ministry, is still a distance away from the beating heart of Lutyens Delhi and even Deendayal Upadhayaya Marg, where the headquarters of the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party, and the newly constructed office of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam are situated.
The Congress has land on Deendayal Upadhaya Marg, but has not started work on a headquarters there and continues to operate from 24 Akbar Road. TRS leaders are unable to explain why they got land in posh South Delhi and not in Central Delhi.
Work on Telangana Bhavan (an attempt to identify the party with the State) is being undertaken by a Hyderabad-based company that had executed many big projects in the past.
Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao has made no secret of his national ambitions and has called upon Opposition political parties (except the Congress) to try and build an alternative to the National Democratic Alliance at the Centre. The BJP too has responded to the challenge and recently held a meeting of its national executive in Hyderabad, and the party has alleged protocol violations by Mr. Rao in failing to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his arrival in the State.