TRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K.Chandrashekar Rao has been promising ‘tickets to all’ sitting MLAs to contest upcoming Assembly polls in December 2023.

But there is a buzz in TRS circles that party MLAs are not believing KCR’s assurance and already started looking at Congress and BJP on a safer side.

This trend is being witnessed among those TRS MLAs who won Assembly elections for two, three, or more terms. They doubt KCR giving party tickets again to them in 2023 Assembly polls fearing ‘anti incumbency’ against sitting MLAs.

In previous Assembly polls held in December 2018, KCR gave tickets to all sitting MLAs except in five or six seats due to negative reports on them.

It worked and TRS retained power for second term by winning Assembly polls with a big majority.

However, KCR now reportedly feels strongly that this strategy will not work in 2023 as there will be severe anti-incumbency against sitting MLAs after completion of two or more terms and he wants to replace them with new faces in such seats.

But KCR cannot disclose this at this stage as it will prompt TRS MLAs to jump into BJP or Congress which would further damage TRS politically.

For these reasons, KCR is giving an assurance for namesake stating that all sitting MLAs will get tickets to prevent them from jumping into other parties.