The announcement has come as no surprise, since the party is known to constitute large committees to keep the voices of dissent down to the lowest decibel.
Published Jun 10, 2025 | 12:14 PM ⚊ Updated Jun 10, 2025 | 12:14 PM
File photo of a Telangana Congress rally. (Supplied)
Synopsis: In an apparent effort to stifle dissenting voices, the Congress high command announced 27 vice-presidents and 69 general secretaries for the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee.
True to its style of functioning, the Congress high command announced 27 vice-presidents and 69 general secretaries for the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC), reminding one of an Airbus.
The announcement has come as no surprise, since the party is known to constitute large committees to keep the voices of dissent down to the lowest decibel.
Congress General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal put his stamp of approval on the jumbo body for the TPCC late at night on Monday, 9 June, but there is still a lot of work pending.
There was no word about who and how many would be taken in as working president, for which there is severe competition in the party. Also, nothing is heard about the campaign committee posts. Then, the party has to release the list of secretaries, spokespersons, and PCC delegates.
When the entire body of the TPCC is announced, Gandhi Bhavan in Hyderabad may not be enough to accommodate all of them whenever there is a wide-ranging meeting on important issues.
In 2022 also, when the party was struggling to assert itself in Telangana under the constant onslaught of the BRS, it had 24 vice-presidents and 84 general secretaries.
Of the 27 vice-presidents announced on Monday night, eight positions went to the Backward Classes (BCs), five to Scheduled Castes (SCs), two to Scheduled Tribes (STs), and three to the Muslims.
This works out to 67 percent for SCs, STs, BCs, and minorities. Similarly, of the 69 general secretaries, 26 went to the BCs, nine to the SCs, four to the STs, and eight to the Muslims. This works out to 68 percent for BCs, SCs, STs, and minorities.
Among the vice-presidents, there is one MP — K Raghuveer Reddy (Nalgonda) — and two MLAs — Naini Rajender Reddy (Warangal West) and Chikkudu Vamsikrishna (Achampet) — along with two MLCs, Balmoor Venkat and Basavaraju Saraiah.
Among the general secretaries, there are three MLAs — Vedma Bojju (Khanapur), Ch Parnika Reddy (Narayanpet) and Matta Ragamayee (Sathupalli-SC).
The timing of the announcement of the general secretaries and vice-presidents indicates that it was an exercise to douse flames of dissidence in the party before they become unmanageable.
Already, the party is grappling with the after-effects of the cabinet expansion. The party had filled three of the six vacant cabinet berths, which remained in the works for 18 long months.
The party left three seats in the cabinet vacant to dangle them as carrots to keep the aspirants in a perpetual state of expectation of their inclusion at a later date.
Even as the Congress began efforts to contain dissidence, it is there running as an undercurrent. Those who had been deeply hurt over their exclusion from the cabinet were Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy (Munugodu), A Premsagar Rao (Mancherial), P Sudarshan Reddy (Bodhan), and Malreddy Ranga Reddy (Ibrahimpatnam).
The party leaders have been trying to soothe their ruffled feelings with promises of better days in the Congress and attempting to convince them that the present expansion was only to ensure social justice to the weaker sections.
The leaders told them that the party’s intentions might be mistaken, that it always favoured forward castes while serving lip service to the marginalised, if the social justice principle is not put into practice.
The most vocal of the MLAs has been Premsagar Rao, who said he had been with the party through its thick and thin but always became the sacrificial lamb when the crunch came.
He remembers how he kept the party flag flying high in Mancherial even when the party was swimming across strong currents of adversity under the BRS regime. He said he had organised the most talked-about public meeting in Indervelli when the BRS was in power, which he claimed was pivotal in turning the tide of public opinion in favour of the Congress.
When Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and BC Welfare Minister Ponnam Prabhakar called on Premsagar Rao and spoke to him on Monday, he appeared a little mellowed down. However, he later made it clear that he had postponed his plan of action at the request of the ministers.
If the party does not keep its word — which he did not divulge to the media — then he would announce his plan of action. Till then, he said, he had been given full authority over his constituency and that he would be the second-in-command there after the chief minister. He said he would be calling the shots —implying that he would not tolerate if G Vivek Venkataswamy, who has been taken into the cabinet, throws his weight around.
Even though unconnected with the cabinet expansion, the party saw two factions seething with rage in Jagtiyal on Monday. Former MLC T Jeevan Reddy, who does not see eye to eye with Jagtial MLA M Sanjay Kumar, set up posters all over the town congratulating Dharmapuri MLA Adluri Laxman Kumar for becoming a minister.
In the flexies, under Jeevan Reddy’s picture, there was a caption: “Original Congress”. The jibe is intended to rile Sanjay Kumar and his supporters since he joined the Congress after winning the Assembly election from Jagtiyal on a BRS ticket. However, they have not said anything so far. Yet, the embers of rivalry continue to smoulder between them.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
