TRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao to take oath as Telangana Chief Minister on Thursday

HYDERABAD: Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) supremo and state caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao will swear-in as the Chief Minister of Telangana on Thursday. The party swept the Telangana Assembly elections 2018, bagging 88 out of the 119 Assembly seats.

The Congress-led Prajakutami – an alliance of Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS) – won 21 seats. Asaduddin Owaisi's All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) won seven seats while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managed to secure one seat.

Rao, 64, won from Gajwel constituency, defeating nearest Congress rival V Pratap Reddy by over 50,000 votes. His son, KT Rama Rao, won from Sircilla with a margin of 89,909. Nephew T Harish Rao also won by impressive margins.

The newly-elected lawmakers of the TRS are meeting in Hyderabad at 11.30 am on Wednesday to formally elect Rao as the leader of the legislature party. 

Speaking after the remarkable performance in the elections, KCR told mediapersons that he was now ready to play an active role in Indian politics. "I spoke to other political parties, we are going to play a crucial role in national politics," he said.

AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi, who had pledged his support to the TRS even before the declaration of the results, congratulated KCR and said that latter "has all capabilities and capacities to ensure that a non-Congress government comes into existence".

He said, "I say this with all responsibility that K Chandrasekhar Rao has all capabilities and capacities to ensure that a non-Congress government comes into existence when the next Parliament elections take place and this country requires a non-Congress and a non-BJP government.

Rao's populist schemes, including waiver of farm loans totalling over Rs 17,000 crore and implementation of Ryuthu Bandu, a farmers investment support scheme that gave tillers Rs 8,000 per annum per acre also seemed to have endeared him to the sizeable farming community.
Despite his aggressive posturing during the Telangana movement, Rao ensured there was no persecution of those from Andhra Pradesh after its bifurcation, something that ostensibly helped him secure votes of many people from the neighbouring state.