New Delhi: Shortly after dissolving the Telengana assembly nine months ahead of schedule, Telangana chief minister and Telangana Rashtra Samiti president K Chandrashekhar Rao ruled out any electoral alliance with the BJP while he took heavily on the Congress.

While keeping his distance from the BJP, Rao underlined that TRS would be a ‘friendly party’ of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, though not a political ally. “We may have friendly contest in the constituencies where MIM fields its candidates. That has been our stand right from the beginning,” he said.

Quashing speculations of any possible alliance with the BJP, KCR, as Rao is called, said, “It is true that we have been maintaining cordial relations with the NDA government at the Centre. But that is only on government-to-government basis.”

KCR’s two meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August had fuelled speculation of an electoral alliance between the TRS and the BJP. But KCR shot down any possibility of such a partnership.

“Ours is a secular party and there is no way we can join hands with the BJP. Even BJP president Amit Shah also said there was no chance of allying with the TRS which is MIM-friendly,” he said.

Earlier in the day, KCR dissolved the assembly almost nine months ahead of the completion of its actual term in a tactical gambit to enable holding of early assembly elections in the state. The state cabinet, which met at Rao’s camp office at Begumpet at around 1.15 pm, passed a one-line resolution seeking dissolution of the assembly.

Later, the chief minister drove straight to Raj Bhavan to meet Governor E S L Narasimhan and submitted the copy of the cabinet resolution on dissolution of the state assembly. The Governor accepted the resolution immediately and asked KCR and his cabinet colleagues to continue as caretaker government till the next government is formed.