When TRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K.Chandrashekar Rao announced the list of TRS district party presidents for all the 33 districts in Telangana all of a sudden on January 26, it shocked not just TRS leaders and cadre but also party’s MLAs.

This is because out of 33 district presidents announced by KCR, 21 are party’s sitting MLAs. There is a buzz in party circles that TRS MLAs never thought even in their wildest dreams that they would be made party district presidents. They were lobbying hard to secure these posts for their followers for the last one year anticipating that as sitting MLAs the party will never consider them for these party posts.

But KCR is known for giving surprises and creating sensations. He selected 21 MLAs as district party presidents.

Initially, MLAs celebrated as if they had achieved something great in TRS. But now these celebrations started slowly fading out after rumours in TRS spread like wild fire that KCR appointed those MLAs as party district presidents after he decided that he will not give party tickets to them to contest 2023 Assembly polls and they will be replaced by new faces.

KCR reportedly obtained survey reports from various sources which reportedly indicated that these MLAs winning chances are poor in 2023 and they should be replaced. If KCR warned them about denying tickets now, there are chances that these MLAs may defect to BJP or Congress which will cause more damage to TRS at this stage.

To avoid this, KCR prepared ground to replace them by making them district party presidents and pacify them later to ensure that they continue in TRS.

Party circles say KCR giving district party president posts to MLAs was not giving promotions to them but in fact demoting them.