The Lok Sabha elections in Telangana this time are unique in the sense that the family of Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao is not part of the race and for the first time, none from his family will have representation in Parliament, either in Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha.
Representation in Parliament was key to Telangana formation as the Constitution vested with it the power of creating a new State, and Mr. Rao emphasised multiple times how the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (now BRS) captured national attention by strongly advocating for the creation of a separate state.
The first election in 2004, after the creation of TRS, saw Mr. Rao himself being elected from Karimnagar constituency and Ale Narendra from Medak. Mr. Rao created necessary buzz, forcing a by-election from Karimangar in 2006 and later in 2008 to prove that the Telangana sentiment was intact despite then Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s best efforts to dilute that.
After being provoked by late Pradesh Congress Committee chief M. Satyanarayana that Telangana sentiment was low, Mr. Rao took a calculated risk and resigned to force a bypoll. Despite the might of the YSR government, he won with a handsome majority of nearly two lakh votes.
He forced yet another bypoll in 2008 when the sentiment was seen to be sliding. But this one proved to be too costly as Mr. Rao had to work hard to win with just a margin of over 10,000 votes. This small margin resulted in a situation where the TRS had to fight the 2009 polls in alliance with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which in principle favoured a combined state.
Mr. Rao moved to Mahabubnagar in 2009 and with the TDP alliance, he went to Parliament yet again. The sudden death of Rajasekhara Reddy and the political developments thereafter led to the creation of a new Telangana state. In 2014, Mr. Rao contested from Medak Parliament seat as well as from Gajwel constituency. As the party formed the government, Mr. Rao resigned from Medak seat.
Interestingly, the last time someone from Mr. Rao’s family won a Lok Sabha election was 10 years ago. In 2014, he himself won from Medak while his daughter Kalvakuntla Kavitha emerged victorious from Nizamabad constituency.
Ms. Kavitha contested again in the 2019 elections but she lost to BJP candidate Dharmapuri Aravind despite the TRS being in power in the State. Thus the representation of Mr. Rao’s family ended in Lok Sabha in 2019. However, his nephew Santosh Rao Joginapally was in the Rajya Sabha being elected to the Upper House in 2018. He completed his six-year term recently.
For the first time in 20 years, there is no candidate from Mr. Rao’s family participating in the current Lok Sabha elections. As a result, there won’t be a member of his family in either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha. However, a distant relative, B. Vinod Kumar, is currently contesting from the Karimnagar constituency. If he wins, he might be the last link to Mr. Rao’s family in terms of parliamentary representation.
