Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao

            Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao was born on 17 February 1954 in Chintamadaka village, Medak District of Andhra Pradesh. He attained a Masters in Telugu Literature.

Political career

Congress Party

            KCR started his career with the youth Congress party in Medak district, controlled by Sanjay Gandhi in the 1970s. As he himself claims, he and a few others stood by Indira Gandhi even after her defeat in the 1977 Lok Sabha polls.

Telugu Desam Party

          KCR joined the TDP in 1983 and contested against A.Madan Mohan and lost that election. Kcr won four consecutive Assembly elections from Siddipet between 1985 and 1999. He also served as the deputy speaker of the Andhra Assembly.

Telangana Rashtra Samithi

On 27 April 2001, Rao resigned as Deputy Speaker and TDP MLA.He claimed that the politicians of the region were being suppressed and believed that separatism is the only solution.In April 2001, he formed the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) to campaign for his separatist agenda.

In the elections of 2004, Rao won the Siddipet state assembly constituency and also the Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency, both as a TRS candidate.The TRS fought the 2004 general elections in alliance with the Indian National Congress and Rao was one of the five TRS candidates who were returned as MPs.

TRS was part of the United Progressive Alliance coalition government, led by Congress. The party later withdrew from the coalition, saying that the Alliance was not minded to support a separate Telangana state. In 2004, he fought the Lok Sabha polls and went on to become a Union Cabinet minister of Labour and Employment in the UPA-1 government at the Centre. He resigned in 2006. In 2009, Rao fought and won the Mahbubnagar Lok Sabha bye election for the TRS,the party fought the general elections as part of the opposition coalition.