When a new state was born

After a struggle of more than four decades, Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh as India’s 29th state in June 2014. And the man who led the battle in the final phase was Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao. KCR, as the CM of the new state is popularly known, founded the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in 2001 to spearhead the movement for statehood, eventually achieving it without any bloodshed.

In no time, KCR emerged as one of the region’s tallest leaders. In the 2004 general election, in alliance with the Congress, his party won 24 assembly and five Lok Sabha seats. KCR moved to New Delhi as labour minister in the UPA cabinet. In 2006, he left the UPA and continued his struggle for a separate state. He joined hands with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Left parties to form a grand alliance in 2009, but the experiment failed.

The 63-year-old started his political career as a Youth Congress leader in 1977. In 1983, he joined TDP, floated by matinee idol, NT Rama Rao. Though he lost his first election to the assembly in 1983, he won all the subsequent MLA elections –from Siddipet in 1985, 1989, 1994, 1999 and 2001, and from Gajwel in 2014.

He won the Karimnagar Lok Sabha seat in 2004, 2006 and 2008, and Mahbubnagar in 2009. In the 2014 general elections, when he won from Medak, the TRS won 63 out of 119 assembly seats and 11 of 17 Lok Sabha seats to storm to power in Telangana. He resigned from Parliament to be the state’s first chief minister.