Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao

Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao కల్వకుంట్ల చంద్రశేఖర రావు
1st Chief Minister of Telangana
Incumbent
Assumed office 2 June 2014
Preceded by	Office established
Member of the Legislative Assembly
Incumbent
Assumed office 2014
Constituency	Gajwel, Telangana State
Member of Parliament
In office 2009–2014
Constituency	Mahbubnagar, Andhra Pradesh (now in Telangana)
Member of Parliament
In office 2004–2009
Constituency	Karimnagar, Andhra Pradesh (now in Telangana)
Deputy Speaker of Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly
In office 1999–2001
Member of the Legislative Assembly
In office 1985–2004
Constituency	Siddipet, Andhra Pradesh (now in Telangana)
Personal details
Born	(1954-02-17) 17 February 1954 Chintamadaka, Siddipet, Hyderabad State, India (now in Telangana State, India)
Nationality	Indian
Political party	Telangana Rashtra Samithi
Spouse(s)	K. Shobha
Children	K. T. Rama Rao K. Kavitha
Residence	Hyderabad, Telangana State, India
Alma mater	Osmania University
Religion	Hinduism

Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (Telugu: కల్వకుంట్ల చంద్రశేఖర రావు; born on 17 February 1954), well popularly known and abbreviated it as KCR,^[1][2] is the first and the current Chief Minister of the Indian state of Telangana,. He is the president of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, a Regional Party in India.^[3] He is a Member of the Legislative Assembly (Telangana) from the Gajwel constituency of Medak District in Telangana. Previously, he served as the Member of the Legislative Assembly (Andhra Pradesh) from Siddipet and also as the Member of Parliament from Mahbubnagar and Karimnagar.^[4] He took oath as the first Chief Minister of the new state of Telangana on 2 June 2014.

Early life

Rao was born on 17 February 1954 in Chintamadaka village, Siddipet Mandal, Medak District of Hyderabad State (now in Telangana) ^[5] He attained a Masters degree in Telugu Literature from Osmania Arts College-Osmania University, Hyderabad.^[6]

Political career

Congress Party

KCR started his career with the youth Congress party in Medak district, controlled by Sanjay Gandhi in the 1970s.

Telugu Desam Party

KCR joined the TDP in 1983 and contested against A.Madan Mohan and lost that election. He won four consecutive Assembly elections from Siddipet between 1985 and 1999. From 1987-1988, he worked as Minister of Drought & Relief in N. T. Ramarao's cabinet. In 1990, he was appointed as TDP convener for Medak, Nizamabad and Adilabad districts. In 1996, he worked as Transport minister in Chandrababu Naidu's cabinet. He also served as the deputy speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly from 2000-2001.^[7]

Telangana Rashtra Samithi

Rao, the First Chief Minister of Telangana State, at a prime location in the capital Hyderabad.

On 27 April 2001, Rao resigned as Deputy Speaker and TDP MLA.^[8] He stated that the people of the region were being discriminated and believed that separate state is the only solution.^[9] In April 2001, he formed the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) to campaign for Telangana^[8]

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 and Rao was one of the five TRS candidates who were returned as MPs.^[10]

TRS was part of the United Progressive Alliance coalition government, led by Congress. The party later withdrew from the coalition, saying that the Alliance was not minded to support a separate Telangana state.^[11] In 2004, he fought the Lok Sabha polls and went on to become a Union Cabinet minister of Labour and Employment in the UPA-1 government at the Centre. He resigned in 2006.^[7] In 2009, Rao fought and won the Mahbubnagar Lok Sabha election. The TRS party fought the general elections as part of the opposition coalition led by TDP. In 2014, KCR was elected as MLA from Gajwel Constituency of Medak Dist of Telangana State with a majority of 19218 and as MP from Medak Constituency with a majority of 397029 on 16-5-2014. 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.^[12] KCR was sworn in as the first chief minister of the Telangana state at 12.57 pm on 2 June. 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’.^[13][14][15]

Personal life

Kalvakuntla Chandrashekhar Rao is married to Shobha and has two children.^[6] His son, K. T. Rama Rao, is a legislator from Sircilla, Karimnagar district, Telangana and is the cabinet minister for IT & Panchayat Raj Departments. His daughter, Kalvakuntla Kavitha, is M.P. from Nizamabad, Telangana . His nephew, Harish Rao, is MLA for the Siddipet constituency and is now the cabinet minister for Irrigation, Legislative Affairs and Marketing in the Telangana government. KCR has 9 sisters and 1 elder brother.KCR has good command over languages telugu,english,urdu and hindi. He is well versed and a man with very simple lifestyle.

Awards

• KCR awarded popular choice CNN-IBN Indian of the Year 2014^[16] on 17-03-2015.

References

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