HTLS 2017 speaker K Chandrashekhar Rao: When a new state was born

After a struggle spanning over four decades, Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh as India’s 29th state in June 2014. And the man who led the battle in the final phase was Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao.

KCR, as the chief minister of the new state is popularly known, founded the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in 2001 to spearhead the movement for separate statehood, eventually achieving it in 2014 without any bloodshed.

In no time after forming his party, KCR emerged as one of the region’s tallest leaders. In the 2004 general election, when he was in alliance with the Congress, his party won 24 assembly and five Lok Sabha seats. KCR moved to New Delhi as labour minister in the UPA cabinet.

In 2006, KCR left the UPA and continued his struggle for separate state. He joined hands with the Telugu Desam Party and the Left parties to form a grand alliance in 2009, but the experiment failed, and the TRS won just 10 assembly and two Lok Sabha seats.

The 63-year old had started his political career as a Youth Congress leader in 1977. In 1983, he joined the Telugu Desam Party, floated by matinee idol NT Rama Rao. Though he lost his first election to the state assembly in 1983, he won all the subsequent MLA elections –from Siddipet in 1985, 1989, 1994, 1999 and 2001, and from Gajwel in 2014.

He won the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat in 2004, 2006 and 2008, and was elected from Mahbubnagar in 2009. In the 2014

2014 general elections, when KCR won from Medak, the TRS won 63 out of 119 assembly seats and 11 of 17 Lok Sabha seats to storm to power in Telangana.

He resigned from Parliament soon after, to step up as the state’s first chief minister.