Youngsters involved in Left-student politics full-time for many years rarely end up on the other side of the political ideology. Even if they do, they do not figure in the higher echelons of the right-wing political parties.
Etala Rajender, who is now making waves for taking on the mighty Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao, is one such politician who has traversed from one end of the political spectrum to the other with elan. In between, he also dabbled with business before joining the separate Statehood movement of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS).
The sitting BJP MLA from Huzurabad in Karimnagar district of Telangana fell out with Mr. Rao, his mentor in politics, and is now challenging him in his own constituency Gajwel, where he is contesting as a BJP candidate catching the attention of all. He hails from the Mudiraj community, which is one of the numerically biggest among the classes in Telangana.
