God Save Telangana

A separate Telangana would be a Bangaru (Golden) Telangana. That was the promise made by K Chandrasekhar Rao during the agitation for statehood to the region. On the morning of February 22, the nearly 4-crore Telanganites realised he actually meant spending over Rs 5 crore of their money to make special gold ornaments for the Lord at the Tirumala temple, the richest shrine in the world with an annual budget of Rs 2,600 crore. 

During the agitation, KCR apparently had promised huge gold offerings to different temples if Telangana became a reality. Now that would have been okay had KCR made this glittering offering to the Lord by dipping into his pocket but that isn’t the case. What is galling is that he got the Telangana government to spend the money to make lavish offerings to different temples for apparently having fulfilled his personal vow, taken before 2014. His entire family and half the Cabinet travelled with KCR to Tirumala. 

But then the Lord of the Seven Hills was not the only one, according to KCR, who made Telangana possible. In October last year, KCR thanked the Bhadrakali temple in Warangal for having fulfilled his wish for granting Telangana by gifting the Goddess a massive crown that cost about Rs 60 lakh. The citizens of Telangana paid for that as well. All the funds have been released from the Common Good Fund of the Commissioner of Endowments department of Telangana. 

Other places of worship too have been blessed with public money largesse. Among them are the Kanakadurga temple in Vijayawada and the Ajmer Sharif dargah. 

In fact, in December 2015, a three-member committee headed by Dr KV Ramanachary, Advisor to the government on matters of endowments, was formed and entrusted with the specific task of making ornaments. A government order was issued by the revenue department announcing the setting up of the committee. 

What pray, is the justification for the exchequer footing the bill? That KCR, as chief minister, is donating it on behalf of the people of Telangana and that the blessings will accrue to everyone. 

KCR’s obsession with religious rituals is well-known. In December 2015, he conducted a five-day long ritual at his farmhouse, 60 km from Hyderabad, to seek the blessings of Goddess Bhadrakali at a reported cost of nearly Rs 7 crore. Though his family claimed KCR spent his own money for the yagna, the government splurging to make arrangements for VIPs and commoners flocking to the place, was very obvious. 

The way to KCR’s heart, everyone knows by now, is through religious rituals. On 17 February, the Telangana Temple Priests Association performed pujas at 12,254 temples across Telangana for the CM’s well-being. 

Even the manner in which KCR got a palatial office-cum-residence built for the Telangana CM at a cost of over Rs 40 crore in November last year, reeked of over-the-top opulence. Especially because the previous one built when Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was CM, is only a decade old and in fine condition. But KCR never occupied the office portion because it was reportedly not good according to the ancient treatise of Vaastu, which rationalists dismiss as a superstition. 

But while opposition parties have slammed this splurge in different temples, KCR has support as well. Rangarajan, the chief priest of the Chilkur Balaji temple near Hyderabad says, “Nothing wrong in what KCR has done. Others take from Lord Balaji while KCR has given him. We are proud of him.”

But KCR does not apply the same generosity to farmers in distress. Farm activists say 2,700 farmers have committed suicide since Telangana came into existence in June 2014, second only to Maharashtra. 

“In 2014, despite a severe drought, the KCR government did not declare drought,” says Kiran Vissa, agriculture activist. “In 2015, it declared drought and received Rs 791 crore as relief from the Centre in April 2016. Till date, not a penny from that amount has been given as compensation to farmers who lost their crop. We suspect the money has been diverted to other schemes,” he adds.

Ironically, on the day that KCR is in Tirumala, his former colleague in the Telangana movement, Prof M Kodandaram, was planning a rally in Hyderabad demanding jobs for the youth. Kodandaram who is now one of KCR’s fiercest critics, was arrested in the wee hours of the morning at 3am to prevent any embarrassment for the KCR regime through a Marina uprising kind of situation.

It is obvious that with the police, the state and the Gods on KCR’s side, any criticism will be like water off a duck’s back.