SOURCE :- SIASAT NEWS
Hyderabad: The Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS) has come out strongly against the state government’s decision to withdraw X-plus security cover for Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) general secretary Dr RS Praveen Kumar, a former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer who resigned from the rank of Additional Director General of Police and later served as secretary of the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TGSWREIS).
In a statement on Monday, June 29, the MRPS national committee warned that law enforcement personnel who risk their lives to protect the country from internal threats would be demoralised if the government went ahead with its decision, which also includes asking Praveen Kumar to return his bullet-proof vehicle.
The organisation specifically cautioned that those currently entering law enforcement would have no assurance of security in the future — a warning that cuts beyond Praveen Kumar’s individual case. BRS leader V Srinivas Goud had made a similar charge just days earlier, accusing the government of effectively engineering Praveen Kumar’s murder by stripping him of protection.
A career forged under threat
MRPS pointed to Praveen Kumar’s 30-year IPS career to justify the continued protection. The organisation noted that he had controlled factionism in Ananthapur district of undivided Andhra Pradesh with a firm hand, and devised innovative methods to counter Naxal extremism when he served as Superintendent of Police in undivided Karimnagar, then one of the hotbeds of the Maoist movement in Telangana. He is credited with having wiped out Naxalism from Karimnagar district entirely.
The threats against him during that period were not abstract. An attempt was made to blow up the SP office in Karimnagar, and a planned assassination attempt prevented him from attending his own father’s funeral. MRPS also pointed out that it was none other than current Hyderabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar, then serving in the intelligence wing, who had recommended enhanced security for Praveen Kumar given the severity of the threat to his life.
Political journey and its contradictions
After Telangana’s formation, Praveen Kumar was appointed secretary of TGSWREIS, where he undertook several reforms across the state’s Gurukul schools. However, his tenure was not without controversy. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports flagged major allegations of corruption in contracts and fund utilisation, documents that this publication has in its repository.
A couple of years before the 2023 Assembly elections, he abruptly resigned, not just from his position but, critics argued, from any sense of responsibility toward the tens of thousands of children enrolled in those institutions, leaving the Gurukuls without clear leadership.
His stated ambition was to dislodge former Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao from power. Many in political, media and activist circles were less charitable, viewing him as little more than a pawn deployed by KCR himself to siphon off Dalit votes, particularly Madiga discontent, away from the BRS government.
He joined the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and contested the 2023 Assembly election from Sirpur in Kumuram Bheem Asifabad district, finishing third with 44,646 votes (24.17 per cent). Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Dr Palvai Harish Babu won by a margin of 3,088 votes over his nearest rival, Koneru Konappa of Congress.
After that defeat, Praveen Kumar switched to the BRS and was fielded as its candidate from Nagarkurnool in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, finishing third again, with 3,21,343 votes (26.46 per cent). Congress’ Dr Mallu Ravi won with 4,65,072 votes, while BJP’s Pothuganti Bharath Prasad — son of the then acting Nagarkurnool MP Pothuganti Ramulu — came second with 3,70,658 votes.
The voters, in their collective wisdom, rendered their verdict on the party-hopping, even if the logic of it remained opaque to most ordinary people.
From cop to critic to party man
Post the Lok Sabha result, Praveen Kumar shed whatever remained of his political ambiguity and emerged as a full-throated BRS spokesperson, taking on the Congress government on issue after issue. The visibility earned him a promotion within the party to general secretary. In activist circles in Telangana, however, his credibility remains contested, as he continues to be seen as a political opportunist whose loyalties have shifted with the wind.
The government’s move comes at a telling moment. The CPI (Maoist), the very organisation that once made Praveen Kumar a marked man, is in its final throes, undone by decades of strategic miscalculation. Its surviving top leadership has either surrendered or is quietly repositioning itself as a force that respects the Constitution and democratic processes.
With neither RS Praveen Kumar nor former Maoist top brass Devji appearing to face any credible threat today, with both freely giving interviews and laying groundwork for their political futures, a straightforward question arises: why should the people of Telangana continue to foot the bill for the security of individuals who have voluntarily left public service and chosen politics as a profession?
It is a question worth deliberating, particularly when it concerns former IPS or conferred-IAS officers who have offered “Sashthanga Pranaam” before the heads of political parties, and now seek the support of the very people whose taxes pay for their protection.
SOURCE : SIASAT
