K T Rama Rao is certainly the successor of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao evident from the changing priorities in TRS. While the issue of succession is cleared, TRS supremo is not yet willing to hand over the responsibilities officially. He is reportedly following a different approach after studying the dynastic politics in India.
At National level, there is only the Gandhi Family which has been taking legacy forward ever since independence. Towards the end of this month, Rahul Gandhi is all set to take charge of AICC from Sonia Gandhi. Indira, Sajiv and Rajiv is one of the modus operandi.
At the states level, almost every state has one first family. The neighbouring state Andhra Pradesh has seen a different kind of dynastic politics with NTR’s son-in-law Chandrababu and daughter Daggubati Purandeswari locking horns, while his sons were pawns. Ultimately Chandrababu with his manoeuvres got endorsed as successor.
The Uttar Pradesh Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav made his son Akhilesh Yadav as Chief Minister. But differences cropped up in the 2017 polls between the father and son duo.
DMK Chief Muthuvel Karunanidhi was put on spot by his sons M. K. Alagiri and M. K. Stalin. He sent his daughter M.K. Kanimozhi to Parliament and even took care of the nephew Murasoli Maran and his successors. Karunanidhi named Stalin as his heir apparent in 2013 putting rest to the confusion about who would take over the party reins. However, Stalin popularly called as Thalapathi doesn’t have complete authority and was designated as working president of DMK only in 2017.
KCR has reportedly picked the model of Karunanidhi of these wars of successions. As per the sources, KCR wants to establish his heir but doesn’t want to give away the power to the next generation which can create problems as seen in the case of Mulayam Singh Yadav.
In fact, KCR previously wanted to follow the footsteps of Bal Thackery i.e. making a Dalit as Chief Minister and ruling the state as defacto. But differences cropped between nephew Raj Thackeray and son Uddhav Thackeray. KCR gave up on the idea because TRS did not secure huge majority either. Nonetheless the bequest process in Telangana has officially commenced with TRS replicating the DMK model.
