HYDERABAD — The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) said on Monday that it would not run for Vice President on September 9 in order to draw attention to the problems farmers are having in Telangana. BRS Working President K.T. Rama Rao said that the party’s move is a direct response to the “anguish” that farmers across the state are feeling because there is a serious lack of urea.
Rama Rao told reporters that both the ruling BJP at the Center and the Congress, which runs Telangana, were to blame for not being able to settle the situation. He gave a bleak picture of the situation on the ground, saying that the lack of urea has gotten so bad that farmers are fighting over it while they wait in lengthy lines to get the fertilizer they need.
“We’re not going to do it.” Rama Rao made it clear that the party will not take part by saying, “We are not going to participate.”
He also said that if the Vice Presidential election included the option of NOTA (None of the Above), the BRS would have used it as a way to protest. This remark makes it clear that the party wants to show its dissatisfaction with both of the major national parties without supporting either candidate.
The BRS’s choice is a big political statement because it uses a major national election to bring attention to a very important regional issue. The party wants to put pressure on both the national and state governments to quickly deal with the agricultural problem, which is a big issue for the people who support them in rural areas.