The former Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) has no one but himself to blame for Bharatiya Rashtra Samiti’s (BRS) abysmal loss in the assembly elections. For a CM and a so-called “national” party chief to be focused on building a vastu-complaint Secretariat for eight years of his tenure when government files concerning important issues are eating the dust, gives an umbrella understanding of why KCR lost the CM chair.
Even half of the pain, which KCR took to explain and convince the people that there was logic behind getting a new secretariat built for a staggering Rs 600 crore, would have helped understand why he is communalising infrastructure space by offering IT Parks to minorities.
The new Telangana secretariat was inaugurated by KCR in April 2023. For eight years, until the new building was built, KCR did not report to duty even once from the old secretariat. He conducted meetings from his house, which is reportedly farther away from where the secretariat has been.
This is one of the reasons why the former Telangana CM earned the moniker “farmhouse CM” from both the BJP and Congress. KCR has announced several key projects during one of his visits to his farmhouse in Erravelli village in Medak district. BJP and Congress took jibes at KCR over the same saying that his frequent visits to the farmhouse were his way of telling voters that he is “inaccessible”.
The secretariat overhaul
In a press conference in the year 2015, KCR announced that the existing secretariat building has very “bad vaastu”, and that’s why no CM ever had a good time there. He was referring to the history of incomplete CM terms in the state.
He was alluding to this history while commenting that the existing secretariat building is basically not safe for him to work in (though he actually claimed that this was not good for Telangana)! In 2015, the BRS Chief claimed that the construction cost for the new secretariat will be about Rs 150 crore and he will demolish the Chest Hospital building in the city.
There was widespread outrage by people at this decision to demolish the heritage chest hospital building. This outrage forced KCR to back off from the proposed new building here.
After some time, KCR put the onus on the central government to give the Bison Polo grounds – grounds that belong to the Ministry of Defence. The Prime Minister had given in-principle approval for the same in the year 2017.
However, there was again outrage from the citizens; and also, the nitty-gritty between the state and the central government on the actual terms of transfer of this land was taking too long (even though the High Court approved the construction on Bison Polo Grounds). At this point in time (2018), KCR claimed that the construction cost for the new Secretariat will be 250 crores.
In the year 2019, the AP government headed by Jagan Mohan Reddy decided to hand over their share of 58% of the existing Secretariat building to the Telangana government. With 100% ownership of the existing building and the land on which it is there, KCR decided to demolish the existing secretariat building and build a new one in this space itself.
Once the site was finalised, he allotted a whopping 610 crores for this building in the year 2021. A minister, at the inauguration of the building in April 2023 told that the final cost may be around 800 crores for this building.
KCR claimed that fire safety is not good in the old building. Citizens couldn’t but help to allude to this anecdote when a major fire broke out in the new secretariat in the final stages of its construction!
KCR’s lucky number is 6. So, the new Secretariat consists of 6 operational floors (LG, UG and 6 floors); Chief Minister’s office is in the 6th floor. KCR signed 6 files in 6 minutes on Day 1 in the new secretariat. The entire English media was silent on this and some even wrote glowing reports.
Self-centred priorities
An official building of the government was built keeping in mind the lucky number and vaastu beliefs of the incumbent Chief Minister, at the exact same location where the older building existed.
With a vision that appeared lacking for the people, K Chandrasekhar Rao still dared to dream. On what grounds he was eyeing Delhi is really a wonder for several reasons. It takes a visionary to become a Prime Minister. The two parimary works that KCR put into that was rename the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) to Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) to convey that he was entering national politics. Now, he is out of even regional politics.
The second area of focus for KCR was becoming PM by insulting the PM chair itself. He refused to attend a PM event he was invited to and he refused to receive the PM at the airport as is the protocol. PM Modi himself while recently taking a dig at KCR said that the reason for the CM’s attacks at Modi and BJP were because they had refused KCR’s wish to join NDA and befriend BJP.
Meanwhile, not only has BRS lost to Congress but the BJP has gained foothold in Telangana with 8 seats, up from 1 in 2018. Moreover, BJP’s Katipally Venkata Ramana Reddy has emerged a hero having defeated KCR and state Congress chief A Revanth Reddy in Kamareddy.
KCR’s wishful thinking has been devoid of ground realities and a vision. His priorities have been misplaced considering the time and amount spent on one secretariat building, national tours to further his aspirations, frequent offensive attacks on the PM and BJP and attacking Hindu faith in the name of attacking PM and BJP, when real issues like temple land grabbing have ailed the state.
