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Hyderabad: In a dramatic move chief minister and Telangana Rashtra Samiti president K. Chandrasekhar Rao has appointed his son, K. Taraka Rama Rao, as the working president of the party.
The decision, likely to have a far reaching impact on TRS politics, came a day after KCR took oath as chief minister for second term following landslide victory of the party in the assembly elections.
The 64-year-old KCR has decided to concentrate more time on national politics to bring a “qualitative change”, official sources said.
“KCR took the decision of appointing KTR as working president with a view to entrusting the responsibility of party affairs to a most trusted and efficient person, since he would be occupied with the governance activities like expediting construction of irrigation projects and also to implement the electoral promises in letter and spirit”, an official release said.
With this move the 42-year old KTR, as the CM’s son is popular known, has inched closer to eventually taking over from his father as head of the state government — as KCR is seriously planning to play an important role at the national political stage.
KTR, who emerged as the number two in the Cabinet during the first term of the TRS, and held several important folios ranging from industries and information technology to municipal administration and urban development, was also holding the post of party general secretary.
He also strengthened his position in the party by successfully leading the campaign of the party in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation leading to the TRS taking over the control of the civic body and firmly establishing political hold over the state capital.
So far there was no post of Working President in TRS and the post was specially created for KTR to enable him to smoothly slip in to his father’s shoes at a later date, party seniors said.
However KTR’s grooming as his father’s eventual successor will pit him directly against another second generation star of the TRS — T. Harish Rao.
Rumours had already been circulationg of Harish Rao, who is KCR’s nephew, being sidelined before the elections.
He had to be brought back to the centrestage in the last phase of campaigning, and asserted himself as a strong pillar of the party, as he went on to win his own Siddipet seat with the biggest margin across the state -120,000 votes- while also playing a major role in several other constituencies including KCR’s own Gajwel.
But Harish Rao congratulated KTR on his elevation.
“Hearty congratulations @KTRTRS”, he wrote in a post on twitter.
KTR replied: “Many thanks Bava”.
While KTR was studying for an MBA in Marketing and E-Comerce with the City University of New York, Harish Rao was cutting his political teeth under KCR when the latter launched the movement for a separate Telangana, and formed a new party — the TRS — in 2001.
Harish Rao was with KCR like a shadow all through the struggle and the party rank and file acknowledges his hard work and contribution to the party and the movement.
The CM’s son KTR on the other hand joined the TRS in 2006, after resigning from his job as an IT professional, and started his electoral career by contesting assembly elections from Sricilla in 2009. His victory margin was narrow 171 votes.
After the formation of Telangana state in 2014 when the TRS came to power, KTR first became minster for IT and gradually grew into the second most important member of the cabinet as his allotted him one important ministry after the other to him.
New Telangana Assembly richer in brain power and money power
The newly elected state assembly of Telangana is quite rich in terms of human resources as many of the legislators are highly educated professionals, doctors and engineers.
As many as 58 per cent of the 119 member House are holders of first degrees or postgraduate degrees.
The assembly has nine engineers, five medical professionals, 13 lawyers, two PhDs, 18 postgraduates and 26 graduates.
In N. Uttam Kumar Reddy of Congress the House also has a former fighter pilot of the Indian Air Force.
TRS Member of Legislative Assembly from Jagtiyal Dr Sanjay Kumar is an ophthalmologist, and V.M. Abraham from Alampur (SC) is general physician with a vision of setting up 100 bed hospital in his constituency.
Among the parties TRS is the best placed as, out of its 88 MLAs, 70 have first degrees or postgraduate qualifications.
The irony is that most of the MLAs from rural areas are well qualified but, of the 24 MLAs from Greater Hyderabad, only five are graduates.
Another 37 per cent members were educated to between Class V and Class XII level.
On the other hand, 50 per cent of MLAs have criminal cases against them. Seven were facing attempt to murder charges and three were accused of crime against women at the time of being elected.
An analysis of the new assembly by the Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms shows that 106 of the MLAs were millionaires (crorepatis).
Richest were K. Rajagopala Reddy of Congress (Rs3.14 billion) assets Marri Janardhan Reddy of TRS (Rs1.61 billion, Dh81.69 million) and K. Upendra Reddy of Congress (Rs910 million).
The “poorest” in the House is Syed Ahmad Pasha Quadri, of Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (MIM), with assets of Rs1.9 million.
Meanwhile, the new Assembly has fewer women members.
The proportion of women legislators has come down to 5 per cent from 8 per cent in 2014.
Average age of the house was above 40. The oldest member was 73-year-old V. Venkateshwara Rao of Congress.
