Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao has dusted out his non-Congress non-BJP “federal front” formula over the weekend even as BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav acknowledged the possibility that his party on its own may fall short of the half-way mark.

In an interview to Bloomberg that was released on Monday morning, Madhav said: “If we get 271 seats on our own, we will be very happy.”

This is the first time that anyone in the BJP has conceded openly that the party may not do as well as 2014 when it got 283 seats on its own. If anything, the BJP has maintained that it would better the 2014 tally.

Madhav’s statement — coupled with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claim that the Samajwadi Party and the Congress were in cahoots to weaken the BSP and the TRS chief’s overtures, specifically to parties which have some kind of electoral understanding with the Congress — are being read together. Some see in the three steps an effort to create an impression that the Opposition coalition is in a shambles and open to realignments.

The Telangana chief minister had a phone conversation with his Karnataka counterpart H.D. Kumaraswamy a couple of days ago but the latter’s office insisted that it had to do with river water sharing and not politics. Janata Dal (Secular) sources said they spoke again over phone on Monday but said it was unlikely Kumaraswamy would risk his own government in Karnataka by going with any formation that KCR is planning, which excludes the Congress.

Later in the evening, KCR called on Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Thiruvananthapuram. The CPM and Congress fight each other in Kerala and could not work out an understanding in Bengal.

But the CPM and the Congress have an electoral arrangement in operation in Odisha and are also part of the DMK-led coalition in Tamil Nadu.

The CPM has also been part of the 20-plus-party Opposition arrangement that has been at work for well over a year though the optics did not exactly translate into electoral alliances at the hustings. Still, KCR’s meeting with Pinarayi is being seen as an attempt to persuade the Kerala strongman to use his influence in the party to explore a non-Congress-non-BJP option.

KCR is also scheduled to meet DMK chief M.K. Stalin on May 13. Stalin leads the Opposition alliance in Tamil Nadu, of which both the Congress and the CPM are a part. Stalin had proposed the Congress president Rahul Gandhi for prime ministership in April at the risk of upsetting others in the Opposition camp.

This is the third time in a little over a year that KCR has floated the idea of a federal front. While it got some response in its first edition, including from Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, the TRS’ refusal to tango with the Opposition inside and outside Parliament on issues of common interest made many who flirted with the idea question his intentions.

His efforts are largely seen as an attempt to keep the regional parties from veering towards the Congress camp, and the resurrection of the idea at this juncture has once again raised questions and speculation on whether he was fronting for the BJP.

Some of the Opposition party leaders are expected to be present in person in the Supreme Court on Tuesday for the hearing in the Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) case. The Opposition is pressing for at least 50 per cent tallying of all EVMs with VVPATs.

After the hearing, the Opposition leaders are also considering a meeting in the capital to prepare for the scenarios that may emerge after the results.