The politician who used astrology to time a state's birth
In short: When K. Chandrashekar Rao became the first Chief Minister of Telangana in 2014, he didn't just pick a convenient hour for his inauguration. He chose 12:57 PM specifically to align with his lucky number, blending high-stakes statecraft with deep personal devotion to numerology and astrology.
K. Chandrashekar Rao, known as KCR, is the founding leader of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and served as the first Chief Minister of Telangana for nearly a decade. His political journey was defined by a long, persistent campaign for a separate state, which he initiated in 2001 by resigning from his position as Deputy Speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly. He eventually secured statehood through a mix of electoral success, a 2009 hunger strike, and strategic alliances with the Indian National Congress.
Once in power, Rao's governance was characterized by a blend of populist welfare and cultural revival. He launched numerous schemes, including the Aarogya Lakshmi health initiative and the Rythu Bandhu farmer assistance program. To build a data-driven welfare state, he conducted the Samagra Kutumba Survey (SKS) in a single day in August 2014, collecting information on 94 parameters across 1.04 crore households. Culturally, he declared Urdu the state's second official language in 2017 and promoted native festivals like Bathukamma.
However, his tenure has faced significant scrutiny regarding large-scale infrastructure and subsidies. The Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project, often cited as the globe's biggest multi-stage lift irrigation scheme, was labelled financially non-feasible from its inception by a 2024 Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit, with expenditures potentially surpassing Rs. 1.47 lakh crores. Similarly, the CAG identified serious anomalies in the Sheep Rearing Development Scheme, citing falsified records and fictitious beneficiaries, estimating losses to surpass Rs. 1,000 crores across the state.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: K. Chandrashekar Rao
- Also: Wikidata — K. Chandrashekar Rao · CC0
- Also: Wikidata — K. Chandrashekar Rao ministry (2014–2018) · CC0
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