Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (born 17 February 1954), widely known as KCR, is an Indian politician who founded the Telangana Rashtra Samithi in 2001 to campaign for a separate state of Telangana. When the state was created on 2 June 2014 he became its first Chief Minister, and he held the office until December 2023. His party is now called the Bharat Rashtra Samithi.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao |
| Born | 17 February 1954, Chintamadaka, Medak district (now Siddipet district, Telangana), India |
| Age | 72 |
| Party | Bharat Rashtra Samithi (founded 2001 as Telangana Rashtra Samithi) |
| Office | Chief Minister of Telangana (2014–2023) |
| Constituency | Gajwel |
| Education | Osmania University (M.A. Telugu literature) |
| Spouse | Shobha |
| Children | 2 (K. T. Rama Rao and K. Kavitha) |
Early Life
Rao was born in a village near Siddipet into a farming family. He studied Telugu literature and is known for his command of the language and its Telangana dialect. He began in the Youth Congress and joined the Telugu Desam Party when N. T. Rama Rao founded it.
Political Career
After losing his first election in 1983 he won Siddipet in 1985 and held it repeatedly. He was a minister in the governments of N. T. Rama Rao and N. Chandrababu Naidu and Deputy Speaker of the Andhra Pradesh assembly from 1999.
On 27 April 2001 he resigned his posts and launched the Telangana Rashtra Samithi with the single aim of statehood. He allied with the Congress in 2004 and was Union Minister for Labour until he walked out in 2006, saying the promise of a state had not been kept. On 29 November 2009 he began a fast unto death; after eleven days, with student protests spreading, the central government announced it would begin forming the state. The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act was passed in February 2014.
His party won the first election and a larger majority in 2018. His government paid farmers a cash grant per acre each season under Rythu Bandhu, supplied piped drinking water under Mission Bhagiratha, restored village tanks, gave free power to farms and built the huge Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project on the Godavari, whose cost and structural problems later came under inquiry. Critics accused him of running a family-centred government from his farmhouse.
In 2022 he renamed the party to pursue national ambitions. In the December 2023 election it lost to the Congress; he won Gajwel but lost a second seat, Kamareddy.
Personal Life
His son, K. T. Rama Rao, is the party’s working president, and his daughter, K. Kavitha, has been a legislator. His nephew T. Harish Rao is also a senior leader.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was K. Chandrashekar Rao born?
K. Chandrashekar Rao was born on 17 February 1954 in Chintamadaka, Medak district (now Siddipet district, Telangana), India and is 72 years old.
Featured image: K. Chandrashekar Rao (left), then Chief Minister of Telangana, meets Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Hyderabad, 22 June 2015. Photo by Ministry of Steel, licensed under Government Open Data License – India, via Wikimedia Commons.
