After the contest, in 1983, Rao joined the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). He won four consecutive Assembly elections from Siddipet (1985-1999). From 1987 to 1988, he served as the Minister of Drought and Relief in Chief Minister N. T. Rama Rao's cabinet. In 1990, he was appointed TDP convener for Medak, Nizamabad, and Adilabad districts. In 1996, he served as Transport minister in Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu's cabinet.[14][15] He also served as the Deputy Speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly from 2000 to 2001.[12]
K. Chandrashekhar Rao assumes the office of Labour and Employment Minister in New Delhi on 28 November 2004
On 27 April 2001, Rao resigned from the Telugu Desam Party, leaving his position of Deputy Speaker.[16] He stated that the people of the Telangana region were being discriminated against and believed that a separate state was the only solution.[17] The same day, he formed the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Party (now called the Bharat Rashtra Samithi) at Jala Drushyam, Hyderabad to achieve Telangana statehood.[5][16] In the 2004 elections, he won from Siddipet and also the Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency by election, both as a TRS candidate. The TRS contested the 2004 general elections in alliance with the Indian National Congress, with the Congress Party's promise of Telangana statehood. Rao was one of the five TRS candidates who were elected as MPs.[18][19]
TRS was part of the United Progressive Alliance coalition government, led by Congress. Rao went on to become a Union Cabinet Minister of Labour and Employment in the UPA government.[7] In 2006, the party withdrew from the coalition, stating that the Alliance was not inclined to support a separate Telangana state, and he resigned as an MP.[20][21][22]
Rao addressing a public gathering during Telangana Agitation
In 2009, Rao won the Mahbubnagar Lok Sabha elections.[23] In November 2009, he started a hunger strike, demanding the introduction of the Telangana Bill in the Indian Parliament. Eleven days later, the Central Government initiated the process to grant Telangana statehood.[24][21]
On 16 May 2014, Rao was elected as MLA from Gajwel with a majority of 19,391 and as MP from Medak with a majority of 397,029.[25]
In Telangana, the TRS, which led the campaign for a separate state for over a decade, received the most votes, winning 11 of the 17 Lok Sabha seats and 63 of the 119 Assembly seats.[26]
In June 2022, Rao announced plans for a national party.[29] On 5 October 2022, the day of Vijayadashami, he renamed his party to Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) at the party's Executive Council Meeting.[30]
K. Chandrashekar Rao with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Hyderabad Metro in 2017
Rao was sworn in as the first chief minister of the Telangana state on 2 June 2014. Rao, a staunch believer in astrology, numerology and vaastu, is reported to have fixed 12:57 PM for his inauguration as per the advice of priests to suit his lucky number 'six', since the sum of the digits is 'fifteen' and '1+5=6.'[27] He was re-elected eight times as TRS president.[31] In September 2018, he dissolved the Telangana Legislative Assembly, nine months before its term ends to go for an early election.[32][33] In December 2018, he was re-elected as Chief Minister for the second term, after winning the 2018 Telangana Legislative Assembly election by a big margin.[34]
Rao shaped the Telangana state to a high degree of development both economically and culturally, right from the formative years of the state since 2014. His welfare programs are aimed at reviving the rural economy and are focused on the development of each community. An intensive household survey, Samagra Kutumba Survey (SKS) was done in a single day on 19 August 2014 across the state to arrive at citizen information for rolling out welfare programs. The data collected pertaining to 94 parameters, covered one crore four lakh households in the State.[35]
Rao had revived the Telangana history, culture and festivals. The native festival Bathukamma, the festival of flowers and Shakti, was declared as a state festival.[36] In 2017, he declared Urdu to be the second official language of Telangana.[37] The government spent Rs. 1,200 crore for the expansion of the Yadadri temple.[38]
The Rao government has been described as populist, launching several welfare schemes.[39][40][41][42]
Rao is married to Shobha and has two children.[11] His son, K. T. Rama Rao is a legislator from Sircilla. He was the cabinet minister for IT, Municipal Administration & Urban Development in Telangana second assembly. His daughter, Kavitha, served as M.P. from Nizamabad and is currently serving as a Member of Legislative Council, Nizamabad. His nephew, Harish Rao, is MLA from Siddipet. He served as Telangana's cabinet minister for finance in second assembly of Telangana. He is proficient in Telugu, English, Urdu, and Hindi.[6][60] He lives with his family at his farm house at Erravelli in Medak district.[61]
In 2015, Rao adopted Pratyusha, who was rescued from domestic violence. She was married in 2020.[62][63]
In December 2023, he suffered a hip fracture after a fall at his farmhouse in Erravelli. He was admitted to Yashoda Hospitals, Hyderabad for treatment and was discharged after a week.[64][65][66]
In 2019, Rao described Rahul Gandhi as the "biggest buffoon in the country"[69][70] and Narendra Modi as the "most ineffective PM" in India's history.[71]
Rao is a follower of Sri Vaishnavism and a devotee of Chinna Jeeyar, his guru in the tradition of Ramanuja.[72] He has led efforts efforts to rebuild major temples in Telangana, including Yadadri, Kondagattu, and Vemulawada.[73][74][75][76]
Controversies
Kaleshwaram Project Scam
During his tenure as Chief Minister of Telangana, Rao has undertaken an irrigation project as Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project, which was touted as the world's largest multi-stage lift irrigation project. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has come out with a damning report on the project in Feb 2024, which says it was economically unviable from the start and details the massive cost overruns, possible undue benefits accrued to contractors for the supply and commissioning of pumps, motors, etc., and the poor planning involved. The project costs have likely exceeded to Rs. 1.47 lakh crores ($USD 17.698 billion), as against Rs. 81,911 crores ($USD 9.87 billion) projected to the Central Water Commission (CWC). This report was released within a year after the Medigadda barrage sank. The National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) found that the Medigadda barrage is severely compromised, rendering it useless unless fully renovated.[77][78]
Sheep Distribution Scam
Launched in 2017 by Rao himself, the Sheep Rearing Development Scheme (SRDS) focused on promoting rural livelihoods by giving subsidized sheep to eligible members. Using this scheme, beneficiaries are supposed to receive sheep with a 75 percent subsidy from the state government. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) reported about the serious anomalies in the implementation of the scheme. The report cited various findings like falsified beneficiary records, increased transportation invoices, usage of non-commercial vehicles for transport, duplicate sheep tags, and allotments for fictitious beneficiaries.[79][80]
The CAG report audit is limited to only 7 districts of the total 33, where the government's loss was estimated to be Rs. 253.93 crores. Proportionately, for all the 33 districts of Telangana, loss is calculated to surpass Rs. 1000 crores.[81][80]
1 2 "About BRS". Bharat Rashtra Samiti. Archived from the original on 23 March 2023. Retrieved 24 April 2024. Telangana Rashtra Samithi, popularly known as TRS party, was founded on 27th April 2001 by Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (KCR).
1 2 3 4 "Leader behind 'mission Telangana': A look back on KCR's political journey". Hindustan Times. 3 December 2023. Archived from the original on 3 December 2023. Retrieved 24 April 2024. Determined to raise the cause for the people of the Telangana region, KCR spearheaded the Telangana movement.; Born in Hyderabad Chintamadaka village in present-day Telangana, KCR started his political career with the Youth Congress party in Medhak.; In 1983 assembly elections in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, he contested against Ananthula Madan Mohan which he lost but stunned observers by securing a few votes short of the Congress heavyweight.
1 2 "KCR to enter Congress via Telangana?". IBN Live. 26 February 2014. Archived from the original on 2 March 2014. Retrieved 26 February 2014. KCR started his career with the youth Congress controlled by Sanjay Gandhi in the 1970s. As he himself claims, he and a few others stood by Indira Gandhi even after her defeat in the 1977 Lok Sabha polls.
↑ "Who is KCR? BRS Leader And First Chief Minister Of Telangana". Times Now. 1 November 2023. Archived from the original on 1 November 2023. Retrieved 24 April 2024. Rao joined the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in 1983. He won four consecutive Assembly elections from Siddipet 1985 and 1999. From 1987 to 1988, he worked as Minister of Drought and Relief in Chief minister NT Rama Rao's cabinet. In 1990, he was appointed TDP convener for Medak, Nizamabad, and Adilabad districts. In 1996, he worked as Transport minister in Chief minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu's cabinet.
↑ Kalavalapalli, Yogendra (12 July 2016). "Are Chandrababu Naidu and KCR two sides of the same coin?". Mint. Archived from the original on 13 July 2016. Retrieved 24 April 2024. KCR served as transport minister in Naidu's cabinet in 1996 and was the Deputy Speaker of the state assembly from 2000-01 before he quit the TDP to start the TRS.
1 2 "Dy. Speaker resigns, launches new outfit". The Hindu. 28 April 2001. Archived from the original on 5 March 2014. Retrieved 24 February 2014. Mr. K. Chandrasekhar Rao today resigned as Deputy Speaker, MLA and primary member of the ruling Telugu Desam Party and launched the Telangana Rashtra Samithi to fight for separate Statehood.
↑ "Telangana finds a new man and moment". The Hindu. 19 May 2001. Archived from the original on 8 January 2009. Retrieved 30 June 2011. Mr. Rao argues that Mr. Naidu protected the interests of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, but did not intervene when the coal-based fertiliser factory at Ramagundam was closed down. He says that farmers in the Telangana region got a raw deal, as revealed by suicides among cotton farmers, the distress sale of infants by Lambada families, and the spread of viral fever in Adilabad district. He accuses the Congress and the BJP also of insincerity in their efforts to develop the region.
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