Students protest the inflection point, but the government still has time to win them over: KTR

Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president KT Rama Rao at a protest organized at Dharna Chowk in Hyderabad on Friday, July 24, 2026. | Photo credit: G. Ramakrishna

Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader KT Rama Rao (KTR) said the student protests against the leaking of the NEET written exam were “unique” and an “inflection point” in the Indian polity and that the delimitation bill, if introduced in Parliament, should ensure that southern states retain their level of representation in the Lok Sabha.

Speaking to The Hindu during his visit to Delhi, Mr. Rao said the protests were not just about the paper leak but seemed to channel a range of frustrations among the people that needed a trigger point. While the anti-establishment has grown, he said, he conceded that the BJP still has time to recover, but that the lessons for the opposition are just as dire.

“What you really saw was the manifestation of a series of events and not just one isolated incident that resulted in this. They (BJP) still have time to make amends and maybe win back the youth. The situation also clearly shows that it was not a principled opposition, nor an opposition bloc as such that could inspire confidence, and it had to be a student-led, leaderless kind, an Arab, rudderless kind simply 2011) That’s why it’s unique and certainly an inflection point in Indian politics If you ask me, PM Modi and his government have never looked as vulnerable as they have in the last 15 days,” he said.

On delimitation, Mr. Rao said it was “unwise” to conflate reservation and women’s delimitation as the government did in April in a special session to discuss the two laws.

“Women’s reservation can be implemented without being linked or linked to delimitation. So the basic point of the Indian government trying to fire the delimitation gun, you know, using women’s reservation as a shoulder to lean on is wrong while the women’s reservation bill has already been passed by Parliament,” he said. “The Indian government must realize that they are sitting on a powder keg. If they mess up with the current ratio where southern states as a bloc have 24% representation in parliament, then there will most likely be a serious protest in the south,” he said.

He devised his own formula for doing this. “Why is delimitation done in the first place? Because you want more participation, representative democracy, more decentralization, etc. So one way to do it is basically to increase the number of MLA seats. If they can go ahead and increase the number of MLA seats across the country, they are now 4,000 plus. That can be increased to 6,000. No one has a problem if it’s not a geographical restriction, the parliament doesn’t abrogate it to just one state. The second formula could be that actually you sit at the table, come to a consensus on how this 24% of the South can be preserved as it is so that there is parity and balance,” he said.

“There should be no punishment for good implementation of population policy, you cannot put a noose around our necks, say it is good for you (southern states) and stifle our voice,” he said.

Published – 28 Jul 2026 15:03 IST