Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (popularly known as KCR) looks relaxed in the studio of his news channel in Hyderabad, holding forth on Telangana, the state he wants carved out of Andhra Pradesh. It’s a “live” programme and viewers are calling in with questions, ending their queries with a rending cry of Jai Telangana.

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) boss fields the questions patiently, answering each of them with a matching cry of Jai Telangana.

The bond between the leader and his followers is unmistakable. But what is not so obvious is why KCR needs a channel of his own to espouse a cause when a dozen or so local news channels are vying for his attention in the state.

“Andhra investors own the Telugu news channels. They are not only distorting facts but also trying to confuse the people of Telangana. I need to counter that,” the 56-year-old leader says, explaining why he has set up Raj News, a 24-hour Telugu television channel, in collaboration with a Chennai-based media company.

Andhra Pradesh is made up of three regions — coastal Andhra, Rayalaseema and Telangana — and when KCR says “Andhra” he means the coastal region that has dominated the state politically and economically. “They have suppressed, exploited and looted us. They make fun of our dialect, culture, food habits and our way of life which are totally different,” says KCR.

The demand for Telangana is not new. The first agitation for separation from Andhra Pradesh started way back in 1969. But it was not until 2001 — when KCR left Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in protest against the police firing on Telangana farmers who were demonstrating against power tariff hikes and floated TRS — that the movement resurfaced with full vigour.

With the Justice Sri Krishna Committee, set up by the Centre to look into the demand for Telangana, making public its report, KCR says the days of “discussions and negotiations” with the Centre are over.

“No force on earth can stop Telangana any more,” the wiry leader thunders, rejecting the report. “I will not accept anything else, not even the post of Prime Minister.”

The TRS boss calls the report — which suggests six options, but largely favours keeping the state undivided with an autonomous regional council for Telangana — a “joke”.

“The committee has itself rejected four of its six proposals as impractical. I have never read anything as funny as this,” the TRS leader scoffs, sitting on a throne-like chair in his plush villa in Hyderabad’s upscale Banjara Hills.

In option number five, the Sri Krishna Committee does, however, suggest splitting Andhra Pradesh into two states — Telangana and Seemandhra, with Hyderabad as the capital of Telangana.

“This only shows that the Sri Krishna committee has not rejected the idea of Telangana,” KCR says.

Clearly, Telangana is TRS’s raison d’être. He wants Telangana formed with 10 of the 23 districts in the state, with Hyderabad as its capital. And he says he is in it for a long haul.

KCR’s ties with Telangana are rooted in his origins. The former TDP leader comes from a landowning family in the north of Telangana. A postgraduate in political science, he is a four-time Lok Sabha MP from Telangana. “We have sustained the movement for 10 years. We have the patience and we will fight on,” he says.

With the TRS threatening to “intensify” the agitation in February, the battle lines have clearly been drawn. What has added to the prevailing political uncertainty in Andhra Pradesh is the demand for Telangana by a section of Congress leaders from that region.

“Forming Telangana will be in our party’s interest. Or else we will be wiped out from the region,” says G. Vivekanand, the Congress MP from Peddapalli in the heart of the Telangana region. The industrialist-turned-politician says the Congress functionaries from Telangana are finding it hard to visit their constituencies as “sentiment is running very high.”

Twelve of the 32 Congress Lok Sabha MPs from Andhra Pradesh are from Telangana.

Clearly, the ruling Congress is in a double bind — it will be accused of breaking up the state by people from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema if it gives in to the demand; and it will lose out electorally in Telangana if it doesn’t accept the demand.

Little wonder that the Congress is treading very cautiously, leaving it to chief minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, who favours an undivided Andhra Pradesh, to deal with the situation.

In fact, on December 9, 2009, Union home minister P. Chidambaram announced that the Centre would start a process to create the state, an announcement that was clearly aimed at breaking the 11-day-long fast of KCR in Hyderabad that had spurred pro-Telangana students to take to the streets, with some of them even setting themselves ablaze.

KCR says the United Progressive Alliance government has “stabbed the people of Telangana in the back” by going back on its word. “People will teach them a lesson. The Congress will be erased from Telangana,” he says.

Anticipating trouble, security has been tightened in Hyderabad and elsewhere in Telangana and the police have barred the entry of television cameras into Osmania University, the hotbed of the Telangana movement.

Yet KCR says his party will “work around” the security forces, adopting a different strategy this time. To start with, he says, TRS will not concentrate only on Hyderabad — unlike the agitation of 2009 — but also on the “towns and villages of Telangana”.

Students of Osmania University in Hyderabad and Kakatiya University in Warangal have been asked to “fan out”. “They will go on bus yatras, visit the villages and interact with farmers and convince them to join the movement,” KCR says.

Unlike 2009, the TRS plans to follow the “Gandhian” path this time and is determined to carry out its statehood campaign peacefully. Says Osmania University political science professor M. Kodanda Ram, a key KCR aide, “The non-violent movement will ensure greater participation of people.”

In the first phase of the protest, the TRS will organise rasta rokos in all district headquarters in the region except Hyderabad and get teachers, doctors, engineers, advocates and government employees to meet public representatives, including councillors, MLAs and MPs, and hand them a bouquet, enlisting their support under a programme called “mulakat.” This will be followed by a satyagraha in every district and block headquarters.

The TRS has plans to “step up” the agitation in February and “paralyse” all activities in the Telangana region, launching a non- co-operation movement. “No student will go to schools, no advocate will go to courts and no employee will work in government offices. We will bring the entire government to a standstill,” says KCR.

On the political front, KCR says, pressure will be mounted on Congress legislators and MPs from Telangana to quit. “If we all — Congress and TRS public representatives — quit, a political crisis will ensue. The Congress high command will then have no choice but to agree to Telangana,” he says.

KCR feels the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh has weakened considerably, with Jaganmohan Reddy, the son of late chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, who enjoys the support of some 30 party legislators, walking out of the party. “It may fall any time and there will be a fresh election and that would only help us,” he says.

If all else fails, KCR is looking at the 2014 Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh. With 119 seats out of 294 coming from Telangana, “we are sure to come to power,” he says. “Or we will be in a controlling position in 2014. We will then pass our own resolution for Telangana in the Assembly, as required, and send it to the Centre to turn it into a statehood bill,” the leader says.

KCR says Telangana is “inevitable” as the demand is rooted in not just economic backwardness but also in social and political discrimination. “To us, it is simply a question of not wanting to live the life of a second-class citizen in our own homeland,” he says.

If Telangana comes about, KCR says he will make a Dalit chief minister and a Muslim deputy chief minister. “My party and the people will decide what role I will play.” He promises to provide three acres of land free to each Dalit family and “compulsory” free education “from KG to PG” if Telangana is created.

However, the TRS leader says he doesn’t support the demand for all states in the country. “I am against Gorkhaland. You cannot simply have a new state on an international border when the country is grappling with insurgency in the northeast and militancy in Kashmir. It is too sensitive an issue,” he says.

Unlike Telangana, KCR says Gorkhaland comprises only one district of West Bengal. “Even there, the people of the plains are divided,” he says.

As the movement for Telangana gathers pace, KCR wants to focus on his television channel. He has applied for his own licence and once he gets it he will rechristen Raj News as T-News, after Telangana. He is also launching a Telugu daily next month called Namaste Telangana to “further the cause”. The newspaper will have seven editions and an anticipated circulation of 5,00,000 copies.

Surely, that would be enough to keep him — and the Centre — busy in the months ahead.