Some people never learn. Despite the Congress party — and certainly the economy, if not country — having been destroyed by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which on and off ruled over post-independence India for half a century before being sentenced to the doghouse of Indian politics, there is no shortage of politicians intent upon thrusting greatness upon their progeny and kith and kin to build political dynasties. Although slow to learn, people across the country are making it clear they are fed up with an Amurath succeeding Amurath.
The latest politician who didn’t learn the lesson of practicing in-your-face nepotism is K. Chandrashekar Rao, hitherto chief minister of Telangana, India’s youngest state over which he strode like a colossus after having led it out of united Andhra Pradesh into autonomous statehood in 2014. After sweeping Telangana state’s first and second assembly elections in 2014 and 2018 and wresting the prized city of Hyderabad, KCR began entertaining delusions of grandeur. First, he built himself a pleasure dome of Xanadu proportions from public money. Next, he appointed his son K.T. Rama Rao de facto CM and his daughter Kavitha and two nephews to high offices in the state government. In addition, with his dominance over Telangana (pop.39 million) established, he changed the name of the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti to Bharatiya Rashtriya Samiti (BRS) with great expectation of emerging as kingmaker within the INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) coalition of opposition parties readying to take on the BJP juggernaut in General Election 2024 scheduled for next summer.
Now all these grand plans of KCR have come to naught following the resounding defeat of BRS in the recently concluded state assembly election. The number of seats that BRS won plunged from 88 in 2018 to 39 in 2023.
There is a writing on the wall in this story for West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati — and a host of regional satraps — grooming kith and kin for party leadership. Doubtful if they will read it.
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