Before taking oath as the first chief minister of the newly formed Telangana state in 2014, K Chandrashekar Rao as the chief of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi – now rechristened as the Bharat Rashtra Samithi – had made a promise. At public events and press meets, KCR always promised that the state’s first CM would be a Dalit legislator. In its 2014 manifesto, his party also promised that all landless Dalit families dependent on farming would get three acres of arable land.
Even as these two promises remained unfulfilled, KCR used the high-voltage Huzurabad bypolls in 2021– necessitated by the resignation of prominent BRS leader and MLA Eatala Rajender, who jumped ship to BJP – to announce his flagship Dalit Bandhu scheme. BRS lost to BJP in the bypolls.
