Why has TRS Working President KTR warmed up to journalists and the media? Till now, the TRS and its leaders had been condescending towards the media. An authoritarian TRS was dictating terms. The media too acquiesced to the TRS. But, suddenly there is a change in the TRS attitude.

On Sunday, KTR attended a meeting of the Telangana Union of Working Journalists and recalled his association with the media during the agitation for the separate state. Not just that Telangana press academy chief Allam Narayana and TRS MLA Kranthi Kiran, who was a journalist in his past avatar, were also present. While ongoing MLC elections is being touted as the reason for this sudden warming up to the media, sources say there are other reasons. Interestingly, KTR used the meet to mainly attack the BJP.

Sources said the real reason for the sudden show of bonhomie is that the TRS has perceived a pent-up anger among the journalists. There are issues such as aborted housing schemes and failure of the TRS government to keep its word on welfare measures. Recently, a pro-BJP group of journalists have even organised a yatra in Telangana on this issue. Sources say the TRS was alarmed by the spontaneous response to the yatra and wanted to retrieve the lost ground. Hence the meeting was hurriedly organised.

Significantly, he assured to give house sites to every journalist within the next three years. This is significant as this is one of the major issues that is causing a disquiet among the journalists. In fact, this is not the first time that such a meeting of journalists was organised. Similar meetings were organised in the districts too.