Telangana was not a freebie but achieved with sweat and toil, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao said on Wednesday.
"Telangana was achieved by toiling. Nobody gave it for free," he said, while inducting former Congress leader Padi Kaushik Reddy into the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS).
He noted that several great men worked to achieve Telangana, including some young people who died in police firing during the movement.
KCR, as the Chief Minister, is popularly known, said that the failure of the 1969 Telangana movement's failure taught him many lessons and he worked with anguish later on, as some people, back then, ridiculed the idea that a handful of people could achieve Telangana.
He also urged leaders across the political spectrum not to indulge in petty politics, highlighting that politics is a never-ending process, encompassing gains and losses.
"Nobody will be in power forever. This is no monarchy," he noted.
However, he asserted that there is a lot of power in the very existence of a political party, irrespective of it forming the government or not.
The CM recalled that he became an MLA after Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founder N.T. Rama Rao gave him an opportunity.
"During my first address in the Assembly, I was allotted 20 minutes to speak but I spoke for 80 minutes with my eloquence," he said
According to Rao, even when he was in the opposition, the Speaker hugged him after listening to his speech.
He welcomed Kaushik Reddy and Sainath Reddy into the party.
"Welcome to Kaushik Reddy to partake in the state's development," he said.