Hyderabad: The history of post-Independence Indian politics reveals that leaders have seldom succeeded with the agitations they launched. Even if they steered their agitations to success, they haven’t been equally successful thereafter.
But, as former President Pranab Mukherjee observed, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao was a rare leader having the “opportunity and greatness” of seeing the movement launched by him reaching its goal. Rao was an agitator, who also proved to be a successful administrator.
Having set the record of longest serving Telugu Chief Minister, nine years as of now, Rao has demonstrated that both welfare and infrastructure can grow without either of it becoming a casualty. The creation of massive irrigation facilities including the world’s largest lift irrigation scheme of Kaleshwaram, Mission Bhagiratha aimed at supply of safe drinking water to every household, renovation of the Yadadri temple, building the Secretariat complex and integrated collectorate complexes in several districts, multi-specialty hospitals in different stages of completion, police headquarters in Banjara Hills and T Hub are some of the infrastructure initiatives.
On the welfare front, the Chandrashekar Rao-led state government enhanced pensions from ₹200 each to ₹2000 and has been successfully implementing Rythu Bandhu, financial assistance to farmers, besides introducing Dalit Bandhu, ₹10 lakh assistance to every Dalit family in the state, and other direct benefit transfer (DBT) schemes.
“His (CM’s) success lies in grasping any issue and going into minute details before and during implementation,” said Somesh Kumar, former chief secretary, who was recently appointed chief adviser to the Chief Minister.
According to Kumar, Rao scans the political, economic, legal and social fallout of a decision. Once the Chief Minister thoroughly studies them, he arrives at a quick decision and does not look back, Kumar said.
There was however criticism that the Chief Minister for most of the time remains inaccessible even to his ministers and his own partymen. The opposition has also attacked him for his prolonged stays at his farmhouse, away from the state capital. “The amount of time he spends on each project or scheme is enormous. It is immaterial where he is,” countered K. Bhoopal Reddy, special secretary to the Chief Minister.
For instance, when the new Secretariat was proposed, the Chief Minister dedicated a month for going through designs and the facilities to be incorporated in the building. The CM’s camp attributes his focussed approach on any issue he takes up for his not meeting people not connected with the issue on the table at that time. He meets several people who are connected with the issue, they say.
Another characteristic of the Chief Minister, his officials say, that ensured successful implementation of the projects, was his reach out to the most junior level staff involved in execution.
“Be it Kaleswaram or the Secretariat, the Chief Minister used to constantly speak to the assistant engineers and take ground-level feedback and resolve problems, if any,” said Kumar.
With elections round the corner, all the nine years of his rule would be put to litmus test and ironically both the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi and opposition are confident that people are going give a mandate in their favour judging the Chief Minister and his administration.
