Rao called elections early. But he had to confront a challenge in the form of the Maha Kootami — the Grand Alliance of the Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS). Despite the formidable arithmetic of the opposition, he was able to defeat them.
And that was because KCR fundamentally relied on the provision of direct assistance to a large section of the citizenry in the form of welfare schemes. He also recognised that aspirations had changed, and that to make lives comfortable and meaningful, people needed paisa, shaadi, makaan and paani (money, marriages, homes and water).
Take farmers. The fundamental issue confronting them across the country is prices. KCR did not depend on the older mechanisms of MSPs, or indirect subsidies. He just gave them cash: Rs 4000 per acre per season, which is to say, Rs 8000 per acre (there are two harvesting seasons, ravi and kharif, in a year). So if you are a farmer with five acres of land, you would get Rs 40,000 through the year before even you sow a crop. This is a tremendous relief for farmers.
