When KCR held piece of broken glass to cut his wrist to commit suicide…

HYDERABAD: Gripped by nostalgia, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president K T Rama Rao walked down the memory lane and described how he was stumbled upon a horrendous scene in which his father K Chandrashekar Rao held a piece of glass, broken from a glass door, to slit his wrist to commit suicide.

KTR, in a casual media interaction here on Wednesday, narrated the sequence of events that led to December 9, 2009, a historical day in the formation of Telangana.

After a protracted confusion, the TRS activists had realised that KCR lodged in Khammam hospital during the agitation, after he was arrested at Karimnagar.

The State Government had deliberately spread a rumour that KCR had called off his hunger strike. Enraged by this, KCR insisted that he be allowed to speak to media. However, since he was under judicial custody, he couldn’t be allowed to address the media, he was told by an IPS officer Kanthi Rana Tata (now Commissioner of Police of Vijayawada), the SP of Khammam.

By then, after a prolonged argument, KTR was allowed to meet his father in the hospital. By the time KTR entered the hospital room, he was frightened to find his dad breaking a glass door and picking up a piece of glass to slit his wrist, if he was not allowed to speak to media and condemn the rumour of his calling off of the hunger strike.

The police argued, cajoled and tried to convince him, in vain. Even as KCR was holding the glass piece, two very senior leaders – Nayani Narsimha Reddy and Captain V Lakshmikantha Rao, who were on either side of KCR’s bed – were raising slogans: “Jai Telangana.”

An aghast KTR rushed to KCR and enquired as to what was happening. Soon, he took control of the situation and spoke to senior officials in Hyderabad. They permitted to have the statement of KCR video-recorded and released to the media. Thus, he could cool down his furious father who was at the forefront of the agitation.

KTR then negotiated with the then Congress Government in undivided Andhra Pradesh to shift KCR to NIMS owing to better conditions. The Government conceded the demand and moved KCR to NIMS in Hyderabad. KTR was joined by his mother and sister (Kavitha) in NIMS.

Even as KCR was continuing his “deeksha”, Intelligence IG Balasubrahmanyam called KTR aside and had informed him that KCR would be brain dead, if he had not called off the hunger strike forthwith as the doctors had felt so. However, KCR refused to retreat. KTR had enquired with NIMS Director Dasari Prasada Rao and Chief Cardiologist Dr Seshagiri Rao about the possibility indicated by the IG. The doctors clarified that they had not expressed any apprehension like that.

Then, a new dimension was given to the effort of making KCR call off the fast. The IG had brought a woman police officer and had her inform KTR’s mother and sister that KCR’s deteriorating health was posing a threat to his life, making KCR’s wife begin wiling. And that if he had called off the fast, he could be alive to continue the agitation for a separate Telangana. Realising that it was a positive spin given by the police to foil his agitation, KCR refused to budge from his adamant stand.

Then, AICC president Sonia Gandhi’s secretary Ahmed Patel contacted KTR to discuss the ways out. As KCR had insisted that he was not going back on the demand for a separate Telangana, the Parliament, which was in session, had appealed to KCR, an MP by then, to call off his agitation. However, an unrelenting KCR stuck to his guns.

Then the Congress came up with a proposal to make an announcement conceding the demand for a separate Telangana. Prof Jayashankar, after discussing with several legal experts, drafted the statement that KCR was expecting from Delhi. Thus, came P Chidambaram, then Home Minister of India, in front of the media and announced: “The process of formation of a separate Telangana has commenced.”

Soon after, KCR ended his “deeksha”. Chief Minister K Rosaiah had returned from Delhi and called on KCR in the hospital. KCR had asked KTR to take a delegation to thank TDP floor leader N Chandrababu Naidu and Speaker N Kiran Kumar Reddy. When KTR entered the Assembly, he found a stark contrast between the faces of the members from Telangana and Andhra (who were enraged).

After exchanging pleasantries, Chandrababu Naidu had asked KTR as to what would be the way forward and wished the latter the best. By then, several leaders from the Congress and the TDP began submitting resignations to their official and elected positions in protest against the decision of the Centre to form a separate Telangana. And, the rest is history.