The ongoing Praja Chaitanya Yatra by the Congress in Telangana, the formation of a new party Telangana Jana Samithi by his former mentor M. Kodandaram and serious allegations of fudging budget figures and spending irregularities by the Comptroller and Auditor General seem to have finally woken up chief minister Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao (popularly known as KCR) from a deep slumber. The chief minister, who spends most of his time at his palatial Medak Farmhouse, sprung to action and in his inimitable Telangana slang, and lambasted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the sorry state of affairs in the state. He even proposed floating a non-BJP, non-Congress federal front for the 2019 elections to ensure ‘justice’ to his people and claims to have received support from Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee and All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen leader and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi.
Addressing a rally in Adilabad district and describing his conversations with the Prime Minister about linking the rural job guarantee scheme NREGA and agriculture, KCR said, ‘20 Saarlu Gaa Modi Gaadiki Cheppina’ (I have told this Modi fellow 20 times). These comments sparked a huge outrage from the BJP’s state unit. Despite initially being a vocal supporter of Modi’s policies of goods and services tax and demonetisation and calling him his ‘best friend’, KCR surprised everyone by taking a 180-degree turn and becoming one of his harshest critics. According to KCR’s detractors, his U-turn and attempts to forge a new national front are aimed at covering up his own government’s failures and be ahead in the game of one-upmanship with Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu in attacking the Centre.
KCR’s U-turn and attempts to forge a new national front are being seen as an attempt to cover up his own government’s failures and be ahead in the game of one-upmanship with Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu. Credit: PTI
Given that KCR now wants to assume a larger national role (he is expected to make an announcement during his party’s plenary on April 27), it is imperative to trace his political style and journey, which has striking resemblance to that of his ‘best friend’ Narendra Modi. To begin with, KCR is a larger than life figure in Telangana just as Modi was in Gujarat. He is a master communicator whose oratory skills remain unmatched by any other politician in the state. He popularised the ‘Telangana slang’ during the movement for separate statehood and his 2014 election campaign. As Congress Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh puts it, both Modi and KCR are experts in building “dialogue forts”. KCR’s campaign was about Telangana pride in the same manner as the Gujarat campaign of 2017 was about Gujarati Asmita.
Modi managed to rule Gujarat for nearly 13 years before becoming Prime Minister, while KCR waged a prolonged (though inconsistent) political struggle of 13 years for a separate Telangana. KCR and Modi never relied on traditional caste vote banks since their arrival into politics. KCR’s Velama community accounts for 1% of Telangana’s population, Modi’s Modh Ghanchi community too accounts for only 1% of Gujarat’s population. However, both of them managed to seize power through the sheer vice of selling jumlas (hollow promises) and peddling unreal dreams to their constituents. While Modi referred to Ahmedabad as ‘Davos of the East’, KCR promised to convert Hyderabad into Venice, both of which remain pipedreams. However, both are considered very good administrators and the public seems to adore their benevolent dictatorship.
After assuming chief ministership, KCR has managed to concentrate all political power in his hands and heads a dummy cabinet where the voices of all his ministers remain suppressed (barring his son and nephew). His scant respect for women can easily put Modi and the BJP to shame. There isn’t a single woman minister in Telangana (yes, not even for the sake of appearances). His disrespect towards women is the hallmark of his politics, as recently evidenced when his government distributed cheap Bathukamma sarees to women by making them stand in line for a whole day. The poor quality of sarees angered many women who burnt them in public.
Furthermore, KCR’s utter neglect of Dalits is visible in the fact that his Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes development minister belongs to the ‘Reddy’ community, known to be the most dominant oppressor of Dalits. As per the findings of a survey conducted by NGO Action Aid, in last three years, out of the Rs 41,526 crore allocated for SC development, only Rs 17,000 crore has been utilised. Similarly, of the Rs. 23,930 crore allocated for ST development, only Rs 11,251 crore has been utilised. In 2016 alone, out of the Rs 13,125 crore allocated for SC/ST development, Rs 7,875 crore has been diverted to KCR’s pet schemes, Mission Bhagiratha and Mission Kakatiya. It took his government more than three years to frame rules for the SC/ST Special Development Fund even though the Act was passed for undivided Andhra Pradesh in 2014.
Compare this with how Rs 4 lakh from SC/ST funds were used in Modi’s hometown Vadnagar to make a movie on him and another Rs 1.86 crore on advertisements on the Statue of Unity. The Modi government also diluted the Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCSP) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP), despite suggestions from the chief ministers’ committee on restructuring the centrally-sponsored ‘Umbrella Schemes for Development of SCs and ‘Umbrella Schemes for Development of STs’ as ‘core to core’ schemes so that these can get higher priority and legislative sanction. The number of schemes for SCs has been reduced from to 256 from 294 and number of schemes for STs has been reduced from 307 to 261 in 2016-17. A handful of only 11 new schemes for SCs and eight schemes for STs has been introduced in 2017-18.
Immediately after becoming chief minister, KCR visited all the temples where he had taken vows for the formation of a new state and made offerings at the expense of the public. Credit: PTI/Files
Further examination of the track record of these two leaders shows that both spend massive amounts of taxpayer money on publicity. While an RTI revealed that the Union government spends Rs 3,755 crore on publicity, an Assembly question revealed that the Telangana government spent Rs 879 crore on publicity from 2014-17, with Rs 35 crore spent just to print ads on Telangana formation day last year.
While BJP state governments waste public money on memorials and statues, KCR does so in building homes and splurging on cars for himself. He constructed a new 1,00,000 square feet house and camp office at the expense of Rs 50 crore in nine acres of prime land in the heart of the city, with a bullet-proof bathroom. Since assuming power, he got his farmhouse renovated and changed his fleet of cars twice; he also go his SUV re-painted because an astrologer told him to do so. The chief minister also acquired two Mercedes buses for his tours each costing more than Rs 5 crore. The State Government has also made plans for a Rs 300 crore brand new secretariat, because the fully functional existing secretariat has bad Vaastu (traditional Hindu system of architecture for bringing harmony and good luck). As one senior political commentator says, this charming use of public money shows that KCR treats Telangana as his jagir (personal estate). It exposes his feudal mindset and desire to have a Nizam-like (erstwhile ruler of the princely state) lifestyle.
Moving on their governance model, KCR and Modi both seem to idolise Hitler, which is evident in their blatant disregard for democratic institutions, especially the state assembly. The average number of sittings of the Gujarat assembly between 2002 and 2013 has been just 30 days a year, and these have been marred with frequent suspensions of opposition members during the passage of crucial bills (especially the Lokayukta Bill in 2013). In an identical fashion, Telangana assembly too met only for an average for 28 days in a year and suspended all MLAs of the principal opposition party including the Leader of Opposition and Public Accounts Committee Chairperson for the entirety of the budget session this year. During the same session, two MLAs were expelled from the assembly under false pretexts and this expulsion had to be overturned by the Hyderabad high court as the government was unable to provide any proof of the MLAs’ misdemeanour. While Modi wants a ‘Congress Mukt Bharat’, KCR’s desire is to have a ‘Congress Mukt Telangana’.
The behaviour of these two leaders towards the fourth pillar of democracy is no different either. The Centre’s blackout of NDTV in 2016 and the information and broadcasting ministry selectively dishing out government advertisement money, as pointed out in an article in The Wire by Pushparaj Deshpande last year. In the first few months of his government, KCR blacked out two channels TV9 Telugu and ABN Andhra Jyothi and arrested 70 channel staff including journalists for protesting the ban. He also swore to bury the media 10 feet underground if they insulted Telangana. His ultra-sub-nationalism is very similar to Modi’s hyper-nationalism at the Centre. In the same way BJP leaders use the media outlets they own to constantly propagate their point of view, KCR too is the de-facto owner of very popular Telangana Telugu and English newspapers and a TV channel which he uses as his mouthpieces.
Finally, moving on to the Hindu agenda; KCR never loses an opportunity to spend public funds for performing yagnas. He conducted a five-day long Ayutha Chandi Yagna in December 2015 at his farmhouse at a cost of Rs 15 crore; attended by the governor of Telangana and all his partymen. This was at a time when Telangana was reeling under severe drought and farmer suicides peaked at over 1,300. This level of apathy reminds us of demonetisation when Modi rejoiced while lakhs suffered.
Immediately after becoming chief minister, KCR visited all the temples where he had taken vows for the formation of a new state and made offerings at the expense of the public. These include golden ornaments to Bhradrakali temple at Hanamkonda, Lord Balaji at Tirupati, Durga temple in Vijayawada and Veerabhadra temple at Kuravi. He first visited the Bhadrakali temple and offered a golden crown valued at Rs 3.5 crore. The gold and jewellery gifts to the Lord Balaji temple at Tiruapti were costlier. A “Saligrama” weighing 14.12 kg, a necklace of 4.9 kg to the Lord and a nose stud of 12.5 grams to his consort, Goddess Padmavati – all put together cost Rs 5.40 crore. A government order was issued to release Rs 10 crore each year for such offerings. By portraying himself as a ‘good Hindu’ is how KCR has managed to keep BJP out of the state for so long.
With this background, the question that we should all be asking is whether KCR is a politician who is best suited to offer a different kind of leadership for the country. While KCR’s idea of a ‘third front’ is being termed as a ‘third rate stunt’ by his critics; all this is an attempt to generate awareness about a leader with national aspirations, especially because he is no different than the current ruling dispensation.
Lakkaraju Sai Anurag is a consultant with Political Edge in Telangana, a political strategy consulting firm working with political parties and leaders, and a former LAMP Fellow.