At the outset, this article is not a direct comparison between KCR, YSR and CB Naidu or their performance as chief ministers of two Telugu states because one of them is no more and for the other two 6 months is not a lot of time to judge their performance especially when they are working in different political terrains now. This is rather my random rambling about their way up the political ladder and their political styles.
Almost a decade ago, I had a unique opportunity to work with AP political leaders across the spectrum including Loksatta's Jayaprakash Narayan, then assembly speaker Suresh Reddy, CPI's ex-MP Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy but what stands out head above shoulders was the working relationship with Chandrababu Naidu and his cotorie of TDP. Without running into any intricacies of the nature of business, let me just affirm that I spent quite some considerable time with most old war horses of TDP's politburo apart from the chief's son Lokesh and current AP cabinet minister Narayana (of Narayana colleges). That was the era after TDP lost power to YSR's juggernaut.
In many of my casual conversations with office bearers and low rung executives (most of them Andhra settlers), I discovered that recurring undercurrent among them was certain reverence to K.Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) who already was making high decibel movement in favor of separate Telangana through his TRS party. They felt KCR was one of the most disciplined, hard-working and efficient workers of TDP earlier and his contribution to boss' speech-writing, media management etc was immensely missed after he left TDP to launch TRS.
Honestly I was (am) not a big fan of KCR's confrontational politics but it doesn't take away from him that he has been the most significant Telugu political leader in the last 15 years. With a law degree and a masters in literature, he happens to be one of the most academically qualified CMs in India and arguably one of the best orators the country currently boasts of. His charm in Telangana is not lesser than NAMO wave or Modimania which gripped the countrymen and NRIs alike.
It also remains that KCR is the most hated Telugu figure unequivocally and almost unanimously hated by all Seemandhraites, settlers for his vitriolic and hate-mongering politics. But it takes an extraordinary leader to thrive despite the hate by polarizing almost entire Telangana behind his belt, confronting everybody ruthlessly (including his competition), resorting to high pressure drama spanning years and coming out unscathed and with flying colors.
He is hated for getting things done his way through means propelled by his selfish agenda, settling personal scores, power brokering, blackmails but history takes note of him as a fighter and winner for his cause (for good or bad). Like him or hate him, nobody can ignore him. He made possible which was almost impossible at one point, by blending political machinations, ruthlessness and surfing on the popular sentiment
Chandrababu Naidu is diagonally opposite of everything which KCR is. A non-communicator, non-orator, non charismatic. In 1994 when he staged a dramatic coup against NTR, I was 14 but politically aware. At that point my family was pro-congress thanks to our distant relationship with PV Narasimha Rao and my late grandfather's political equation with him. So I was neither perturbed nor excited about what was happening in Hotel Viceroy. Actually that incident brought in me some interest about current affairs and political happenings which was otherwise made insipid and bland by previous CMs like N Janaradhan Reddy or Kotla Vijayabhaskara Reddy.
What caught my mind later was frequent surprise inspections of government offices by new CM CBN himself which was never tried earlier. For general public, all politicians were blood sucking, disinterested rogues but when this guy started akasmika thaniki, followed by other public engaging programs like janmabhoomi, sramadhanam - he was a breath of fresh air. So technically he involved general public in social activities much before Modi did with Swachch Bharat abhiyan.
Chandrababu later started appearing on prime-time TV call-in shows where he interacted with general public. Regardless of how efficient the programs were and who benefited out of those, he showed that he was trying to reach out to the public - atleast average middle class urban households like mine. Nobody else could have thought of those initiatives at that point.
When he captured imagination of youth and tech-savvy intellectuals by bringing in Bill Gates, Bill Clinton to Hyderabad, built cyber-towers, catalyzed IT boom and laid out blueprint foe the lives of thousands of IT and ITES employees, he was making all right moves. Politically too, a leader who could revolt against an idol like NTR but still survive, faced minority ire by making pact with Vajpayee but still survive - could go no wrong. He was almost a superhuman. But what happened in 2004 was unimaginable.
YSR completely swept the carpet under his feet by taking all grassroot level, non tech savvy, agro based voters who were intimidated by CEO like CBN under his fold. I'm not sure if YSR himself expected the kind of success he reaped after padayatra but for CBN, it was a deathblow.
In my view YSR was the most politically aware and calculating politician among all Telugu leaders till date. Termed as perennial dissenter among congress circles for decades, he finally catapulted his party to power against all odds including a supposedly rockstar CM, a respected PM Vajpayee's aura, KCR's undercurrent Telangana sentiment.
YSR optimally channelized anti-CBN and anti-suave wave in favor of him and very intelligently transformed CBN's swarnandhra pradesh slogan into harithandhra pradesh directly targeting 70% population of the state depending on agriculture who mostly disdain technology or educated urban class. Incidentally, YSR himself was a doctor. His political prowess made sure he was the only leader who could reign in KCR and his maverick politics.With rajiv arogyasri and other schemes which his fans can't hold their blush, he was on the cusp of being the longest serving CM before an unfortunate accident bluntly cut short one of the brightest political careers of the state. His death gave a lease of new political life to both CBN and KCR who sit as chief ministers today
Back to 2014:
After struggle, hate, innocent deaths, irresistible sentiment and Sonia Gandhi's poor calculations - Telangana finally became a state in 2014 and KCR crowned a CM. KCR came to this position through confrontational politics, which in turn increased his mass fanbase and credibility among pro Telangana activists, but it seems the CM continues to be in that mode even today.
Though I admit that TV9 is too propagandist a channel with a foul mouth and should have been regulated, banning them was no solution. KCR wanted to make a statement that those who oppose him have to bite dust. This actually doesn't work in democracy. With absolute majority in the assembly and among masses of Telangana and with almost no resistance or alternative to him in the state, he is busy consolidating his power and grip on the state and it's resources.
But when the CM gets into verbal duels and confrontation with media, prime minister, central government, governor of the state, chief minister of the neighboring state or literally everybody who don't follow his diktat, he is actually hurting the state, himself and those crores of people who stood behind him. And when his son tweets anti Diwali or anti-Hindu statements and his daughter declares anti-India sentiments to attract few votes, things are definitely going down hill from there.
Chandrababu seems to making right noises by aligning tightly with central government and industries. When neighboring states like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu get worried about him to the point of asking PM to control him, it indicates something is going right in Andhra state. Devising grandiose plans for the state, attempting to pull investors from everywhere and most importantly not spreading hatred among regions, declaring that he would felicitate Telangana stalwarts in Andhra unlike his Telangana counterpart, things are staring towards new dawn.
Being a Telanganite myself, I would love my CM to be a face of reforms, accelerating growth and superior infrastructure in Telangana and would also like CBN to succeed in all those sky high ambitions. Hatred and development are mutually exclusive and diagonal in the public life which can't go along.
Almost a decade ago, I had a unique opportunity to work with AP political leaders across the spectrum including Loksatta's Jayaprakash Narayan, then assembly speaker Suresh Reddy, CPI's ex-MP Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy but what stands out head above shoulders was the working relationship with Chandrababu Naidu and his cotorie of TDP. Without running into any intricacies of the nature of business, let me just affirm that I spent quite some considerable time with most old war horses of TDP's politburo apart from the chief's son Lokesh and current AP cabinet minister Narayana (of Narayana colleges). That was the era after TDP lost power to YSR's juggernaut.
In many of my casual conversations with office bearers and low rung executives (most of them Andhra settlers), I discovered that recurring undercurrent among them was certain reverence to K.Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) who already was making high decibel movement in favor of separate Telangana through his TRS party. They felt KCR was one of the most disciplined, hard-working and efficient workers of TDP earlier and his contribution to boss' speech-writing, media management etc was immensely missed after he left TDP to launch TRS.
Honestly I was (am) not a big fan of KCR's confrontational politics but it doesn't take away from him that he has been the most significant Telugu political leader in the last 15 years. With a law degree and a masters in literature, he happens to be one of the most academically qualified CMs in India and arguably one of the best orators the country currently boasts of. His charm in Telangana is not lesser than NAMO wave or Modimania which gripped the countrymen and NRIs alike.
It also remains that KCR is the most hated Telugu figure unequivocally and almost unanimously hated by all Seemandhraites, settlers for his vitriolic and hate-mongering politics. But it takes an extraordinary leader to thrive despite the hate by polarizing almost entire Telangana behind his belt, confronting everybody ruthlessly (including his competition), resorting to high pressure drama spanning years and coming out unscathed and with flying colors.
He is hated for getting things done his way through means propelled by his selfish agenda, settling personal scores, power brokering, blackmails but history takes note of him as a fighter and winner for his cause (for good or bad). Like him or hate him, nobody can ignore him. He made possible which was almost impossible at one point, by blending political machinations, ruthlessness and surfing on the popular sentiment
Chandrababu Naidu is diagonally opposite of everything which KCR is. A non-communicator, non-orator, non charismatic. In 1994 when he staged a dramatic coup against NTR, I was 14 but politically aware. At that point my family was pro-congress thanks to our distant relationship with PV Narasimha Rao and my late grandfather's political equation with him. So I was neither perturbed nor excited about what was happening in Hotel Viceroy. Actually that incident brought in me some interest about current affairs and political happenings which was otherwise made insipid and bland by previous CMs like N Janaradhan Reddy or Kotla Vijayabhaskara Reddy.
What caught my mind later was frequent surprise inspections of government offices by new CM CBN himself which was never tried earlier. For general public, all politicians were blood sucking, disinterested rogues but when this guy started akasmika thaniki, followed by other public engaging programs like janmabhoomi, sramadhanam - he was a breath of fresh air. So technically he involved general public in social activities much before Modi did with Swachch Bharat abhiyan.
Chandrababu later started appearing on prime-time TV call-in shows where he interacted with general public. Regardless of how efficient the programs were and who benefited out of those, he showed that he was trying to reach out to the public - atleast average middle class urban households like mine. Nobody else could have thought of those initiatives at that point.
When he captured imagination of youth and tech-savvy intellectuals by bringing in Bill Gates, Bill Clinton to Hyderabad, built cyber-towers, catalyzed IT boom and laid out blueprint foe the lives of thousands of IT and ITES employees, he was making all right moves. Politically too, a leader who could revolt against an idol like NTR but still survive, faced minority ire by making pact with Vajpayee but still survive - could go no wrong. He was almost a superhuman. But what happened in 2004 was unimaginable.
YSR completely swept the carpet under his feet by taking all grassroot level, non tech savvy, agro based voters who were intimidated by CEO like CBN under his fold. I'm not sure if YSR himself expected the kind of success he reaped after padayatra but for CBN, it was a deathblow.
In my view YSR was the most politically aware and calculating politician among all Telugu leaders till date. Termed as perennial dissenter among congress circles for decades, he finally catapulted his party to power against all odds including a supposedly rockstar CM, a respected PM Vajpayee's aura, KCR's undercurrent Telangana sentiment.
YSR optimally channelized anti-CBN and anti-suave wave in favor of him and very intelligently transformed CBN's swarnandhra pradesh slogan into harithandhra pradesh directly targeting 70% population of the state depending on agriculture who mostly disdain technology or educated urban class. Incidentally, YSR himself was a doctor. His political prowess made sure he was the only leader who could reign in KCR and his maverick politics.With rajiv arogyasri and other schemes which his fans can't hold their blush, he was on the cusp of being the longest serving CM before an unfortunate accident bluntly cut short one of the brightest political careers of the state. His death gave a lease of new political life to both CBN and KCR who sit as chief ministers today
Back to 2014:
After struggle, hate, innocent deaths, irresistible sentiment and Sonia Gandhi's poor calculations - Telangana finally became a state in 2014 and KCR crowned a CM. KCR came to this position through confrontational politics, which in turn increased his mass fanbase and credibility among pro Telangana activists, but it seems the CM continues to be in that mode even today.
Though I admit that TV9 is too propagandist a channel with a foul mouth and should have been regulated, banning them was no solution. KCR wanted to make a statement that those who oppose him have to bite dust. This actually doesn't work in democracy. With absolute majority in the assembly and among masses of Telangana and with almost no resistance or alternative to him in the state, he is busy consolidating his power and grip on the state and it's resources.
But when the CM gets into verbal duels and confrontation with media, prime minister, central government, governor of the state, chief minister of the neighboring state or literally everybody who don't follow his diktat, he is actually hurting the state, himself and those crores of people who stood behind him. And when his son tweets anti Diwali or anti-Hindu statements and his daughter declares anti-India sentiments to attract few votes, things are definitely going down hill from there.
Chandrababu seems to making right noises by aligning tightly with central government and industries. When neighboring states like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu get worried about him to the point of asking PM to control him, it indicates something is going right in Andhra state. Devising grandiose plans for the state, attempting to pull investors from everywhere and most importantly not spreading hatred among regions, declaring that he would felicitate Telangana stalwarts in Andhra unlike his Telangana counterpart, things are staring towards new dawn.
Being a Telanganite myself, I would love my CM to be a face of reforms, accelerating growth and superior infrastructure in Telangana and would also like CBN to succeed in all those sky high ambitions. Hatred and development are mutually exclusive and diagonal in the public life which can't go along.
