Kavitha looks to create her own legacy outside KCR's shadow

Hyderabad: Days before the launch of former MP Kalvakuntla Kavitha's political party, a Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) activist in Hyderabad's L B Nagar was fuming.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), under the Congress government, had allowed large cutouts of Kavitha at prominent junctions across the city for over a week, she complained, while BRS hoardings were routinely pulled down by evening.

For BRS workers, it was yet more evidence that Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy was quietly propping up Kavitha as a weapon against the BRS — the main Opposition party. Whether or not that suspicion holds, Kavitha's political debut has rattled enough people to demand attention.

Her announcement of the Telangana Rakshana Sena (TRS) on April 25 landed with deliberate precision: The BRS was wrapping up a year-long celebration of its silver jubilee on April 27.

The BRS, originally founded as the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on April 27, 2001, had been rechristened by its founder and former Telangana CM K Chandrashekar Rao — also Kavitha’s father — when he pivoted towards national ambitions.

By reviving the TRS acronym and anchoring her party firmly in the Telangana identity, Kavitha appeared to be reclaiming the emotional and political ground her father had, in her view, abandoned. The Election Commission has since provisionally allotted her party the name Telangana Rakshana Sena — and not the Telangana Rashtra Sena.

When Kavitha unveiled the party on April 25, she announced the abbreviation TRS without spelling out the full name, an ambiguity that may yet have consequences.

A parting shot

What caught observers off guard the most, however, was not the party's name but Kavitha's blistering critique of KCR himself.

Last year, when the family rift surfaced, Kavitha spoke of her father as a god besieged by demons. By April 25, that framing had darkened considerably. "He is not our KCR. He is a changed man, a machine-man," she declared at the party launch, adding, with pointed sorrow, that she spoke those words not in anger but in grief.

She revealed she had been suspended from the BRS for speaking out against corruption, while "corrupt rats" remained in KCR's inner circle. "I was suspended for speaking the truth. KCR is now a soulless puppet, held captive among foxes and wolves," she said.

Her sharpest lines carried an unmistakably regional sting. "He did a padayatra for the Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme, but did nothing for Palamuru. The KCR of those days would have sat right there and seen it through.

Instead, he went off to Punjab, Gujarat, and Bihar, declaring he had swept the state clean and rebranded as a national party. If he had truly cared about Telangana's people, would Palamuru-Rangareddy have run dry?" she asked.

Senior journalist and political analyst Raka Sudhakar noted how unusual this was in the context of the Telugu states’ political history. "Whether it was Nandamuri Harikrishna, Daggubati Purandheswari, Y S Sharmila or Y S Jagan, all of them fought for the legacy of their fathers — NTR and YSR, respectively — and never uttered a negative word about them publicly. Kavitha is a stark exception," he told DH.

Suffocated for space

The political logic behind the break is not hard to gauge. With her cousins — former Rajya Sabha member Joginapally Santosh and former minister T Harish Rao — and brother K T Rama Rao firmly entrenched in the BRS hierarchy, Kavitha had little room to grow.

Floating a party of her own that conspicuously resurrects the Telangana identity that KCR had shed allows her to position herself as a leader in her own right.

She has framed that ambition in the language of maternal care rather than political ambition. Long known as "Kavithakka" (elder sister Kavitha), she now aspires to be “Amma” — a mother figure — to Telangana's 3.9 crore people.

Her supporters have started calling her “Kavithamma”. Meanwhile, she has promised that "Telangana Amma" will govern with a mother's heart.

The BRS leadership, for its part, has responded with studied indifference. KCR, who attended the party’s silver jubilee valedictory, said nothing publicly about his daughter or her new party. KTR, when asked by a journalist, was dismissive, saying that many parties had been born in Telangana before.

Long road ahead

Political analysts are measured in their assessments. "I don't see any considerable impact beyond [the new party] being a minor irritant to the BRS," said senior journalist and political analyst Telakapalli Ravi.

"Whatever impact she generates will fall primarily on BRS; she could also serve as a rehabilitation platform for leaders disenchanted with KCR or KTR's style of functioning. But it's too early to say anything definitive. A lot depends on how aggressively she goes after the BRS," he told DH.

Sudhakar echoed the caution. "Maintaining a political party is not easy. It demands resources of every kind, organisational capability, and sustained effort," he said.

Whether Kavitha can translate her undeniable name recognition and rhetorical momentum into durable political capital remains the central question. She has broken out of her father's shadow for now, but building her own politically strong outfit is another matter entirely.