BRS Sees Return of Tiger KCR, With His Soft Side on Full Display

Hyderabad: Chief Minister and BRS president K. Chandrashekar Rao on Tuesday returned to form at public meetings in Sircilla and Siddipet. To put it in BRS language, the Tiger was back, and on the prowl.

In Siddipet, addressing a massive public meeting, Chandrashekar Rao showed this to everyone, rallying his troops for the November 30 battle, even as he pulled out all stops to strike an emotional chord with the people.

Even as the crowds reacted with joy and applause at every mention of his relationship with Siddipet, his open mention of his roots in Siddipet appeared to have re-established Chandrashekar Rao’s emotional connection with the people.

“It was back when I was a baby in Chintamadaka that my mother fell ill. She could not feed me and it was a woman from the Mudiraj community in the village who breastfed me,” Chandrashekar Rao said, as he explained just how deep his roots go.

“There is no greater heaven than the place you are born. This is what Siddipet is for me,” he said, amidst loud cheers.

Calling Siddipet his ‘mother’, Chandrashekar Rao declared, “This is the place that took me into its lap, helped me grow, where I studied, gave birth to my political career, made me a leader, inspired me to fight for Telangana, and made me the Chief Minister. I can never repay what you have given me. Everything we did, in making Telangana a state with all-round development, progress, and welfare, all started here.”

But Chandrashekar Rao the person who also ensured the politician in him was on full display, as he talked about development, schemes his government implemented, and what a third term for the BRS can mean to Telangana.

His repeated return to narrating incidents that shaped his politics and his acknowledgement that much of these came from Siddipet, and some from Siricilla which clearly resonated with the huge crowds that gathered to listen to him.

“The seeds of Dalit Bandhu were sown here,” he said and recalled how a woman once approached him many years ago and said her daughter’s proposed marriage was on the rocks as she could not afford to buy a bicycle for the groom.

“We got a bicycle, but I also asked the boy why he wanted one when he was getting a ‘bangaram laanti ammayi’, and he told me that his father was insisting on the bicycle. Later in the day, the woman was still there and upon return, I saw that she was waiting with a coconut which she asked me to break so her son-in-law could ride his bicycle. I did and then that was one of the best scenes ever. The groom rode the bike with his bride in front and his mother-in-law on the back of the bicycle. That incident was the inspiration for Dalit Bandhu,” he said amidst smiles all around the dais with Siddipet MLA candidate and minister T Harish Rao standing next to him.