The BJP's debacle in neighbouring Karnataka has added an extra vigour and hope in the Congress; the party believes it could emerge victorious.
Telangana Congress chief A Revanth Reddy during his padayatra. (Congress4Telangana/Twitter)
The defeat of the BJP in the neighboring Karnataka state has infused extra vigour — and hope — into the Congress in Telangana.
The renewed hope has set off the starting pistol for the race within the Congress to the chief minister’s office with mainly three leaders, TPCC president A Revanth Reddy, Legislative Party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, and Bhuvanagiri MP Komatireddy Venkat Reddy taking off towards the finishing line.
The competitors’ number might increase when more leaders join the party in the run-up to the elections, slated to be held towards the end of the year.
Former MP and BRS leader Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy is said to be toying with the idea of joining the Congress as its prospects of winning are on an uptick, specifically after the pummelling it gave to the BJP in Karnataka.
Meanwhile, the three leaders are braving the hot summer to connect with the people. They have managed to put out a façade that they have smoked the peace pipe and were working together to propel the party to power.
Telangana will elect 119 members to its Assembly by this year’s end.
Vikramarka, who is on a padayatra from Boath (Adilabad) to Khammam, addressed a huge public meeting at Jadcherla on Thursday, 25 May. He urged the chief minister to be accountable for driving the state into a veritable debt trap.
Revanth Reddy and Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka. (Creative Commons)
He offered several welfare schemes to the people if they elected the party to power. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu was the chief guest at the meeting.
Meanwhile, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy is employing another strategy. He is using back-channel contacts to be in the good books of the party’s top brass. He is also trying to keep together his flock of workers and the people in his home Nalgonda district.
Last Tuesday, he addressed a huge gathering on his 60th birthday at the Brahim Vellam (Udaya Samurdam Lift Irrigation) Project on the Krishna river.
Even as slogans demanding that Komatireddy be made the chief minister rent the air, he asked his followers to pipe down since he was not vying for the post. He said the people would reject him at the election if he harboured any such ambition.
The message, however, was not lost on anyone. He was merely playing to the gallery.
Komatireddy threw the hat in the ring even as the race track to the chief minister’s post is gradually getting cluttered — normal in the Congress party before any polls.
Komatireddy mobilised a huge crowd for a ritual that he performed to celebrate the occasion — offering prayers to the Krishna river. The huge crowd and a convoy of around 500 vehicles clogged the Narketpally Brahmin Vellum Project road for hours.
The show of strength, the way he conducted himself, and the speech he delivered, left no one in doubt about his ambitions.
Meanwhile, TPCC president Revanth Reddy completed his padayatra in the state. During the yatra, he galvanised the youth with his powerful anti-K Chandrashekar Rao rhetoric.
He now wants to top up his padayatra with a bus yatra to cover the constituencies he had missed and those where the party is institutionally weak under the continuous pounding by the ruling BRS. He is likely to begin the yatra next month.
Each leader is hopeful of getting the party high command’s blessings if the verdict in the Assembly elections favours it.
Meanwhile, Komatireddy, a known and vocal critic of the TPCC president, is more interested in preventing him from becoming the chief minister.
He had used everything in his capacity to prevent him from becoming the PCC president, but failed. He is now a permanent gadfly in the TPCC. He considers Revanth Reddy as a TDP leader in Congress garb.
When Congress president Mallikharjun Kharge attended a public meeting in Adilabad district during the padayatra of Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, Komatireddy said the Congress should choose a Dalit leader as the next chief minister.
Congress leader Komatireddy Venkat Reddy. (Supplied)
As both Kharge and Mallu are Dalit leaders, his exhortation to the Congress caused a lot of discomfiture to Revanth Reddy, who was sharing the dais. Analysts felt that Komatireddy’s comment was to keep Revanth Reddy on the edge as he is in the race.
In his address, Komatireddy made some observations that were intended to drive home the point that he is the leader of the party who calls the shots.
Even while asserting that he does not want to become the chief minister, he, however, said that he would be able to summon the chief minister, whoever that might be, to Nalgonda district to address the people’s problems.
He also said that he would bring party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi to Nalgonda to rejuvenate the cadres and prepare them for the elections — a statement made obviously to assert his stature in the party.
While he is a sharp politician and has links to the party high command in Delhi, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy is still viewed with some suspicion by sections of the Congress.
In the Munugode by-election late last year, his brother and erstwhile Congress MLA Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy had chosen to cross over to the BJP and become its candidate.
Not only did Venkat Reddy not campaign for the Congress candidate, there were audio leaks where he was heard purportedly telling his supporters that they should back his brother in the election.
He is also took off for a holiday to Australia instead of campaigning for the party in Munugode, much to the chagrin of the state Congress leadership.
There have, since then, been rumours that he might follow his brother into saffron fold — rumours that he has vehemently denied. But for now it seems he seems to have decided to stay back in the grand old party and jostle for supremacy within.
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