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    A flashy head start

    The Telangana CM wrests first-mover advantage by advancing the state assembly polls by eight months.
    by Amarnath K. Menon Sep 14, 2018 6 minutes

    Ever since he founded the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in 2001, Kalvakuntala Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), 64, has never completed a full five-year tenure from any constituency, whether as an MLA or as an MP. Neither have any of the 108 others elected as TRS MLAs. As an imperious leader, banking on a mix of astrology, numerology and vaastu besides realpolitik, KCR has engineered elections ahead of time, staving off challenges and successfully staying ahead of rivals.

    That characteristic belligerence was again on display on September 6. The chief minister got the state cabinet to recommend the dissolution of the first 119-seat Telangana legislative assembly, eight months ahead of schedule, and then had Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan call for an early election. Telangana, therefore, will have assembly polls with Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram, which complete their full term. With this move, KCR has given himself the first-mover advantage, catching rivals unawares and underprepared, while he hopes to cash in on the development narrative of the state.

    Taking the offensive as well as the

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