TELENGANA Rashtriya Samiti President K Chandrashekhar Rao is seen in two different lights in Andhra Pradesh. In the Telengana region, he is still the hero of the Telengana cause. In the rest of the state, he is seen as the man intent on splitting Andhra Pradesh.

Starting his political career as a student Congress leader, Chandrashekhar Rao has been MLA four times over for Telugu Desam Party, which he joined in its formative years inspired by its founder N T Rama Rao.

Loved or hated, over the years, the 52-year-old KCR has come to be recognised as a master political strategist.

KCR’s real claim to fame began five years ago when he threw up the deputy speaker’s position in the Andhra Pradesh assembly, resigned from the legislature and quit N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party to re-boot the demand for a separate Telengana state-a movement buried for nearly three decades.

On April 27, 2001, KCR launched the TRS, a political platform with the “one-point agenda” of creating a separate state for the 30 million people in the Telengana region. Rao claimed that his move was a result of the TDP’s neglect of the impoverished Telengana belt.

His critics saw KCR’s move to float the TRS as an attempt to re-launch his own political career after being sidelined in the TDP by Chandrababu Naidu.

The popularity of Rao’s move was immediately apparent, with as many as 19 lakh people from the Telangana districts enrolling in the party within four days of formation.

... contd.