Returning to power will be a trial for KCR

The former chief minister has a complex task before him: Not only does he have to reinvent BRS in Telangana, but reinvent it for Bharat

K  Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) might find political resurrection harder than he thought. The politics of welfare that worked brilliantly in 2018 has failed this time. And behind the defeat were more complex factors of identity and livelihood.

Like many other politicians in Telangana-Andhra Pradesh, KCR was in the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and a member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) for four terms. In 1999, he was close to getting ministership but was pipped at the post by a fellow Vellama, former Central Bureau of Investigation director Vijaya Rama Rao, who contested the 1999 elections and became a first-time MLA.

KCR might not have taken up the cudgels on behalf of Telangana if he had become a minister then. Anyhow, he left the TDP to form the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in 2001, ostensibly to right the wrongs done to Telangana all these years. Telangana has been backward — and feudal — for centuries. Remember, it never came under the British but was ruled by the Nizam of Hyderabad, who did set up a few factories and a textile mill in Warangal in collaboration with the French, but avenues of employment were few and feudal exploitation abounded, something Shyam Benegal has captured eloquently in his film Ankur. That’s the context for the Congress’s jibe at KCR — “Dora (landlord) then and Dora now”.

KCR set up the TRS in the winter of 2001, quitting as deputy speaker of the Assembly and resigning from the TDP. In the summer of 2001, Andhra Pradesh had local body elections. The TRS took off so strongly that the TDP got just 10 of the 20 Zilla Parishads, despite a triangular fight — between itself, the Congress, and the TRS. Realising its potential, the Congress quickly did a deal with the TRS for the Lok Sabha elections. KCR’s rallies proved an instant hit. In the 2004 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, which the TRS fought in alliance with the Congress, the party bagged 26 Assembly and five Lok Sabha seats.

He kept petitioning the Congress to give statehood to Telangana. The Congress continued to prevaricate. Finally, KCR pulled out of the coalition government, resigning from labour ministership, and threatened to expose the Congress for betraying the people of Telangana. The TRS won the state elections in 2014 and 2018 (polls were advanced).

The biggest issue in the formation of Telangana was the lack of jobs for the ‘Telangana’ people. “Outsiders” hogged high-paying jobs, the divide becoming more pronounced after Chandrababu Naidu turned Hyderabad into Cyberabad. Mr Naidu paid for that strategy by his comprehensive electoral defeat. Evidence suggests so did KCR in 2023. Unemployment was the biggest issue in the Assembly election this time: After Covid and the return of Gulf migrants, joblessness, especially among young people, has haunted the state. The Annual Report (2022-23) of the Periodic Labour Force Survey says Telangana’s unemployment rate for the 15-29 age group is around 15 per cent, far surpassing the national average of 10.5 per cent.

The most crucial infrastructure element — irrigation systems — was never developed systematically in Telangana, although both the Krishna and the Godavari flowed through it. By contrast, the coastal Andhra region aggressively lobbied for and got a garland of canals that took river waters deep into East and West Godavari districts. KCR tried to correct this by concentrating investment in irrigation projects. But this turned out to be his government’s biggest liability. The Rs 1 trillion Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project, designed to deliver water to North Telangana, developed cracks in the Medigadda pillar and the Congress set up a model of an ATM called Kaleshwaram in Hyderabad to highlight corruption.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) did not cover itself in glory: The Union Jal Shakti ministry made no comment on the scheme.

But the BJP has been in the game. In 2019, of the 17 Lok Sabha seats the BJP got only four but it defeated KCR’s daughter, K Kavita. Initially, KCR flirted with the BJP. But gradually, the relationship soured, especially after Eatala Rajender, his health minister, defected to the BJP (Mr Rajender lost to his parent party this time, testifying to the foolishness of the move).

Along the way, KCR fell victim to delusions of grandeur. In 2022, he renamed the TRS the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), launching the party’s campaign to states as far afield as Maharashtra (Nanded), acquiring property in Delhi to set up the “national” office of the BRS and using political autonomy as arbitrage with the BJP as well as the INDIA coalition.

That policy would have worked if he had won Telangana this time. He couldn’t, and now the BJP will begin circling the skies. The Enforcement Directorate’s case against Kavita is centred around Delhi’s excise scam. The case comes and goes.

KCR has a complex task before him: Not only does he have to reinvent the BRS in Telangana, but reinvent it for Bharat. Naveen Patnaik had a similar choice. He opted to keep his energies confined to Odisha, where he could both dictate the direction of his own party’s growth and also designate his Opposition.

National Opposition leaders will now stop calling KCR. The BJP will loosen and tighten the screws as and when it wants. All that national investment … all for nothing.