K Chandrashekhar Rao, founder and president of the Telangana Rashtriya Samithi(TRS) is today a depressed soul. His dream for a separate telangana state has been given the royal boot.

Till date, it was the Governments at the State level and the Centre that were playing ball with Rao’s T-dream. Sunday brought a new development. The public too has joined hands in giving Rao a royal boot.

Just as a flashback, 16 sitting TRS MLAs and 4 parliamentarians put in their papers last year as a revolt against the Government’s apathy towards the formation of a new Telangana state. They would re-contest the elections to prove to the nation that the T-sentiment is still hot. Unfortunately in the by-polls that were conducted on Thursday, it was the turn of the Telugu Desam party and the Congress to smile.

KCR’s dream soured horribly. He could manage only 7 out of those 16 Assembly seats and 2 out of the four Lok Sabha seats his party vacated. Personally too, KCR suffered a major jolt. For someone who had created a record by winning with a margin of over 2 lakh votes last time around, 15000 seems quite a downfall. Add to it allegations that there was big-time rigging in the Karimnagar constituency by the TRS cadre makes one think that KCR just about managed to cross the line.

These elections have proved that a separate state does not ensure development. It is the will of the governing people that does. How else can KCR explain the state of underdevelopment the region is in what with four MPs and 18 MLAs in power. KCR himself was in the Union ministry. That seems to have backfired on him as well.

Chandrababu Naidu’s development mantra seemed to have been taken very well by the Telangana public and that shows in the five assembly seats that no one expected the TDP to win.

If only all Governments adopt the Development Mantra!

Image Courtesy: The Hindu