Frail and fractured

Out of power, the future looks bleak for KCR and his party as the Congress and the BJP could poach his MLAs

- RAHUL DEVULAPALLI

MUCH AGAINST THE spirit of democracy, former Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) did not personally hand over his resignation letter to Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan. On December 3, when it became clear that the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) was losing, KCR simply walked out of Pragathi Bhavan, his opulent official residence and camp office in the heart of Hyderabad, and asked one of his senior officers to submit the resignation letter on his behalf to the governor.

According to eyewitnesses, he asked his nephew and Rajya Sabha MP J. Santosh Kumar for a vehicle. He stepped into the car, leaving behind the security detail and government cars, and drove away with a handful of his associates. What would usually be a 20-car convoy, mostly consisting of Land Cruisers, was reduced to two modest private cars. As the sun set in the west, KCR retired to the east of Hyderabad, into his new life in his farmhouse. For the first time in four decades of his political career, KCR lost an election, trounced by a relatively unknown BJP leader in Kamareddy, the second constituency he contested. He was also edged out of the chief minister’s post by a much younger rival, A. Revanth Reddy.

Those who met KCR at his farmhouse described his state as being “disturbed”, “dull” and “in disbelief”. The question of how people could overthrow someone who won for them a separate Telangana state and gave them more than a dozen welfare schemes seemed to trouble him. To lift his spirits, his close aides allowed a stream of visitors from his native village, Chintamadaka, which he had adopted as chief minister. The following day, he greeted more visitors with folded hands, knowing well that he had been relegated to just another legislator.