It’s not often that the village of Erravalli in Telangana’s Medak district makes news headlines, leave alone that the state’s chief minister pays a visit. When K. Chandrashekar Rao did so on August 22, 2015, a local newspaper report commemorated his visit, and noted that “when some of the villagers tried to follow him, they were asked by police to continue their designated work instead of following him.”
Chief ministers have their reasons for wanting a low profile. Doubtless, the villagers went on with their lives, and let the chief minister be. He oversaw the clearing of bushes and old buildings, returned from time to time to check on his high-tech farmhouse and, noting the condition of houses in the area, later announced that 200 two-bedroom houses would be constructed at a cost of five lakh rupees ($7339) each.
The catch was that in May 2016, his government would announce that 16,000 acres of land were needed for the building of the MallanaSagar dam – with 175 acres from Erravalli to be affected. The neighbouring village of Vemulaghat would be wholly submerged, losing 775 acres. The next month, the Chief Minister moved into his $7.3 million official residence in Hyderabad.
Frequent protests, including one where ten women fell unconscious watching other villagers get lathi charged, didn’t manage to faze the government, whose irrigation minister stated in September 2016 that the project had to be completed “at any cost.” This included nearly three months of curfew being imposed under Section 144.
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