K. Chandrashekar Rao

Chandrashekar Rao was born to Raghava Rao and Venkatamma on 17 February 1954 in Chintamadaka village near Siddipet of Hyderabad State which is present-day Telangana.[5] His family belongs to the Padmanayaka Velama.[6] Rao has 9 sisters and 1 elder brother.[7] He attained a MA degree in Telugu literature from Osmania University, Hyderabad.[8][9]

K. Chandra Shekhar Rao assumes the office of Labour and Employment Minister in New Delhi on 28 November 2004

On 27 April 2001, Rao resigned as Deputy Speaker, TDP Party as well.[12] He asserted that the people of the Telangana region were being discriminated and believed that separate state is the only solution.[13] In April 2001, he formed the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Party (renamed to Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi) at Jala Drushyam, Hyderabad to achieve Telangana statehood.[12] In the elections of 2004, Rao won the Siddipet state assembly constituency and also the Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency, both as a TRS candidate. The TRS fought the 2004 general elections in alliance with the Indian National Congress with a Promise of Congress Party to give Telangana State and Rao was one of the five TRS candidates who was returned as MPs.[14][15]

TRS was part of the United Progressive Alliance coalition government, led by Congress. He went on to become a Union Cabinet minister of Labour and Employment in the United Progressive Alliance government at the centre with his party colleague Aelay Narendra who became minister of Rural Development and Jannu Jakaraiah as chairman for National Minimum Wages Advisory Board. The party later withdrew from the coalition, saying that the Alliance was not minded to support a separate Telangana state.[16] He has resigned as MP in 2006 on a challenge of Congress and won with a huge majority of more than 200,000 votes. Again he resigned as MP in agitation of Telangana movement and won with a minor majority.

In 2009, Rao fought and won the Mahbubnagar Lok Sabha elections. In November 2009, he started a fast-unto-death, demanding the introduction of Telangana Bill in the Indian Parliament. After 11 days of beginning his fast, the Central Government said yes to Telangana as a separate state.[17]

The TRS party fought the general elections as part of the opposition coalition led by TDP. In 2014, Rao was elected as MLA from Gajwel Assembly Constituency of Medak Dist of Telangana State with a majority of 19,218 and as MP from Medak with a majority of 397,029 on 16 May 2014.

In Telangana, the TRS, which led the campaign for a separate State for more than a decade, emerged victorious by winning 11 of the 17 Lok Sabha seats and 63 of the 119 Assembly seats, and emerged as the party with the largest vote share.[18]

K. Chandrashekar Rao with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Hyderabad Metro in 2017

KCR was sworn in as the first chief minister of the Telangana state at 12.57 pm on 2 June 2014. Rao, a staunch believer in astrology, numerology and Vaastu, is reported to have fixed this time for his inauguration as per the advice of priests to suit his lucky number 'six'.[19][20][21] Rao was re-elected 8 times as TRS president.[22] In September 2018, Rao dissolved the Telangana Legislative Assembly, nine months before its term ends to go for an early election.[23] In December 2018, Rao was re-elected as Chief Minister for the second term, after winning the 2018 Telangana Legislative Assembly election.[24]

KCR shaped the Telangana state to a high degree of development both economically and culturally, right from the formative years of the state since 2014. His welfare programs are aimed at reviving the rural economy and are focused on the development of each community. An intensive household survey, Samagra Kutumba Survey (SKS) was done in a single day on 19 August 2014 across the state to arrive at citizen information for rolling out welfare programs. The data collected pertaining to 94 parameters, covered one crore four lakh households in the State.[25]

KCR had revived the Telangana history, culture and festivals. The native festival Bathukamma, festival of flowers and Shakti was declared as state festival.[26] In 2017, he declared Urdu to be the second official language of Telangana.[27] The government spent Rs. 1200 crore for the expansion of the Yadadri temple.[28]

In May 2019, ahead of the 2019 Indian general election, KCR attempted to set up Federal Front along with leaders of other regional political parties. The Front's aim was to bring a non-Congress, non-BJP alliance to power at the Central Government of India.[38][39]

In June 2022, KCR announced to float a national party Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).[40] On 5 October 2022, at the day of Vijayadashami, KCR renamed his party to Bharat Rashtra Samithi on party's Executive Council Meeting.

Rao is married to Shobha and has two children.[8] His son, K. T. Rama Rao is a legislator from Sircilla and is the cabinet minister for IT, Municipal Administration & Urban Development. His daughter, Kavitha, served as M.P. from Nizamabad and currently serving as a Member of Legislative Council, Nizamabad since 2020. His nephew, Harish Rao, is MLA for Siddipet and Telangana's cabinet minister for finance. Rao has good command over languages like Telugu, English, Urdu, and Hindi.[41] He lives with his family at the official chief minister residence, Pragathi Bhavan in Hyderabad.[42]

In 2015, Rao adopted Pratyusha, who was rescued from domestic violence. She got married in 2020.[43][44]

Rao is a Gandhian. He has credited Mahatma Gandhi's ideology for inspiring him in his non-violent Telangana movement.[45][46]

Rao has described Rahul Gandhi as the "biggest buffoon in the country".[47] He has described Narendra Modi as the "most ineffective PM" in Indian history.[48]

Rao is follower of Sri Vaishnavism of Ramanuja, an ardent devotee of his guru Chinna Jeeyar and a strong believer of Hinduism and spirituality.[49][50][51] To enhance spiritual consciousness, KCR had initiated reconstructing and renovating key temples across Telangana, such as Yadadri[52] Kondagattu, and Vemulawada among others.[53][54][55]

Rao gave lyrics for the song "Garadi chesthundru" from the film Jai Bolo Telangana (2011), and wrote a song in Kolimi (2015).[56] He also gave lyrics for songs to promote Mission Kakatiya and for his 2018 poll campaign.[57][58]

• Popular Choice Award at CNN-IBN Indian of the Year 2014[59][60][61][62]
• Agricultural leadership award 2017[63]
• Economic Times Awards – Business reformer of the year 2018[64]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao.

• Official Website of the Office of the Chief Minister