Anti-incumbency a challenge in rural T'gana as BRS eyes return

It’s 2pm on a bright Sunday. Thirty-six-year-old B Sai Krishna steps out of the front seat of the Maruti Swift Desire he has rented for the day, and holds the rear door open for his parents, wife, and young daughter to emerge. They step on to the small sidewalk, the wind buffeting them, and look out onto the expanse of the Godavari.

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The young girl is struck by the river, but Sai Krishna turns her attention to the huge cement blocks that obstruct the river’s path, and the rotors underneath, explaining to her the rudimentary mechanics of the world’s largest lift irrigation project. To the rest of his family, he nods his head and says in admiration: “Kaam to kiya hai KCR ne (KCR has done work).”

About 15km away, at the bustling Mukteshwara Swami Devasthanam temple in the heart of Kaleshwaram village, 52-year-old Koppa Rao dismissively waves away the praise of the irrigation project. “Don’t ask the tourists. Ask the people who live here. How many years will we vote for KCR because of Kaleshwaram? That dam is now a symbol of his inefficiency. It is his family’s ATM,” Rao said.

Between these two assessments -- development on hand and allegations of corruption on the other -- lies the fate of the 119 seats in Telangana that go to vote on November 30.

Inaugurated in 2019, the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP) is one of India’s most ambitious irrigation projects, aimed at utlilising 200,000 million cubic feet of water from the Godavari to irrigate 4.5 million acres in northern Telangana across 13 districts. Built at an estimated cost of around ₹80,000 crore, all borne by the state government, it was KCR’s jewel in the crown, the embodiment of his government’s development identity.