KCR faces Kaleshwaram cross-examination today; Kavitha, family visit ahead of hearing

Hyderabad: A sense of unease hung heavy over Telangana politics on Wednesday morning as BRS supremo and former Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao braced for a crucial day of reckoning. Hours before he was set to be grilled by the Justice P.C. Ghose Commission probing the Kaleshwaram irrigation project, his daughter, MLC K. Kavitha, turned up at his Erravalli farmhouse, sparking speculation about the family’s show of solidarity.

It was the first time Kavitha had met her father publicly since tensions erupted over her strongly worded letter on internal party issues. Accompanied by her husband, Anil, she arrived early, and sources indicated that KTR’s son, Himanshu, also reached the farmhouse to lend quiet support. The gathering underscored the gravity of the day, with the family huddled together before KCR’s much-anticipated appearance.

KCR was scheduled to depart Erravalli by 9 AM and reach the BRKR Bhavan in Hyderabad by 11:30 AM to face cross-examination an unprecedented moment in Telangana’s political landscape. Never before has a former chief minister found himself summoned to answer allegations in a judicial probe of this scale.

The inquiry commission, headed by retired Chief Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, was set up in March this year following a string of alarming incidents at the Kaleshwaram project’s barrages. On October 21 last year, the Medigadda barrage partially collapsed, and soon after, alarming defects were found at Annaram and Sundilla, raising red flags about the design, construction, and financial management of one of the state’s most ambitious irrigation initiatives.

Over the past few weeks, the commission has methodically gathered evidence, questioning a string of top irrigation officials, contractors, and bureaucrats both serving and retired. Many of them, under oath, revealed that several crucial decisions like the selection of barrage sites were made under KCR’s direct supervision during his time in office.

With KCR now set to answer pointed questions about the project’s planning and execution, the political stakes could not be higher. Telangana’s power corridors are watching every move, keen to see how the former chief minister defends his government’s handling of a project once billed as a game-changer but now mired in controversy.