The Telangana Chief Minister has announced that he would spend time shuttling between Delhi and Hyderabad.
HYDERABAD: It is only a matter of when, not if, K.T. Rama Rao (KTR), the 42-year-old only son of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), would take over as the next Chief Minister, as the father who returned to power for a second term after riding on a massive mandate in the 7 December Assembly elections made the former the party working president.
KCR has announced that he, henceforth, would be devoting his time and energies to national politics and spend time shuttling between Delhi and Hyderabad.
A day after he was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Telangana for a second term, TRS president KCR appointed KTR as the party working president, thus officially making him the number two in the party and future leader in the government too. KCR is yet to form his Cabinet which is expected to be in place next week.
KCR returned to power by winning 88 of the 119 Assembly seats in the 7 December elections. The Congress-led Mahakutami, which wanted to unseat TRS, had got 19 and its ally, TDP got two seats.
KCR has taken the decision to devote more time for national politics where he wants to build a Federal Front with non-Congress and non-BJP parties. He wants to spend more time in Delhi before and after the next Lok Sabha elections. KCR has announced that he wants to meet experts from different fields so that a viable economic model can be prepared as basis for the Front.
The sudden announcement of KTR as the working president of TRS has caught party leaders and cadre unawares and they swung into celebrations across the state. Scores of party leaders and newly elected MLAs and MPs thronged the party headquarters, Telangana Bhavan and greeted KTR on his promotion. KTR, 42, was the IT and municipal minister in the outgoing Cabinet of KCR.
As KCR is yet to form his Cabinet, the elevation of KTR as the next top leader in the party is expected to have an impact on the composition of the council of ministers expected to take place next week. At present, KCR as CM is accompanied by Mohamad Mahmood Ali, former deputy CM, as the new home minister.
By appointing KTR as the working president, KCR has also set at rest the speculation on the succession issue for some time. KCR’s nephew and major irrigation minister in the previous Cabinet T. Harish Rao is another contender for the number two slot in TRS as he is senior to KTR in the party. KCR’s daughter and Nizamabad MP Kavitha, too, is an important leader in TRS, but she is not a rival to her brother.
After he was made the working president, KTR went to the residence of Harish Rao and sought his support and cooperation in running the party. Contrary to initial speculation, Harish Rao had endorsed his uncle’s decision and backed KTR’s elevation. Harish Rao later tweeted extending his best wishes to KTR, thus ending any controversy over the development.
Several senior leaders, especially the newly elected MLAs of TRS, have welcomed the appointment of KTR as the working president. Telangana State Planning Board vice-chairman and newly elected TRS MLA from Wanaparthy S. Niranjan Reddy said that the CM’s decision to elevate KTR as the working president would help further consolidation of the party.
“At a time when the CM wants to devote more attention to the national politics, KTR is needed in the party which is in an expansion mode,” Reddy said. Hyderabad Mayor Bonthu Ramamohan, too, said that the party supreme’s decision to promote KTR was a boon to the youth in TRS and it would send right signals to the hardworking cadre.
KCR is understood to have told several seniors who met him at Pragathi Bhavan, his official residence-cum-office in Hyderabad on Friday that KTR would look after certain specific responsibilities like TRS membership drive, construction of party offices in all district headquarters and preparing the party for the coming Panchayat, cooperative societies and local bodies elections.
KTR has already been working as the number two in the party since the last few months, particularly after the dissolution of the Assembly on 6 September. Since then, KCR has confined to his farm house at Erabelli in his Gajwel Assembly constituency and handed all party work to his son. It was KTR who had talked to the candidates and coordinated the campaign.
After KCR, it was KTR who had addressed dozens of meetings and rallies for the TRS candidates and fine tuned the electioneering. KTR, who mostly travelled by road, is the only leader who took on the Mahakutami leaders on their home turfs and threw a challenge that his party would come back to power with full majority.