Revanth’s fiery leadership, Kanugolu’s brilliant strategies, and leadership that separated the wheat from the chaff won Congress Telangana.
TPCC president Revanth Reddy releasing the application form for ticket aspirants in Hyderabad.
“Politicians fall in line when they smell victory,” a political strategist once told this reporter.
It wasn’t till the results of the Karnataka Assembly elections in May this year that Congress leaders in Telangana even considered the possibility of electoral victory against an icon of the Telangana statehood movement like Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and his BRS party.
From a publicly squabbling, divided house until barely six months before elections, to putting up a public facade of unity and wresting the state from the BRS, the journey of the Congress in Telangana has been just short of a miracle.
While a win in Telangana was the only solace for the Congress in Assembly elections held in five states — including Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh — where it faced humiliating defeats, it was no easy feat.
The Congress had been lagging behind from the word go in Telangana. When the Bharat Jodo Yatra led by Rahul Gandhi traversed the state in November last year, a little over a year ago, leaders of the state Congress had knives drawn in an “insider” versus “outsider” battle.
So intense was the anger and distrust among the “old guard” of the Congress against state unit chief A Revanth Reddy and others who followed him from the TDP that then general secretary in-charge of Telangana, Manickam Tagore, became collateral damage and was replaced with Manikrao Thakare.
Tagore’s contributions — putting in place the building blocks for a Congress revival in Telangana, including the appointment of Revanth Reddy as Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) chief — played no mean role in the party eventually bagging the state in the 30 November election.
The factions in Telangana Congress spared none, especially the party’s poll strategist and Task Force member Sunil Kanugolu.
At the peak of dissidence in December last year, Nalgonda MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy, one of the “old guard”, had even accused the Kanugolu-run war room of manufacturing defamatory slogans aimed at the old timers of the Congress. Others accused Kanugolu of “behaving like a faction leader”.
The party’s victory on 3 December was perhaps sweeter and more personal for Kanugolu.
As recently as March this year Telangana was deemed a “squandered opportunity” by those in the Congress who could see that the bickering in the state unit was marring whatever real chance the party had of taking on the ruling BRS.
In fact, this reality of the Congress is what gave the ruling BRS the confidence that the Telangana Assembly elections would be a breeze despite anti-incumbency. A Congress afflicted by a never-ending list of problems helped the BJP create the perception that the saffron party was the real rival of the BRS, though ground realities said otherwise. BJP losing steam in Telangana and faltering in sustaining its momentum turned into an opportunity for the Congress.
The change of pace for Telangana Congress leaders came when it saw the party’s unit in neighbouring Karnataka taste power. The sudden enthusiasm for a real electoral contest was still no match for the huge vote-share gap the party needed to bridge before emerging as a real threat to the BRS.
As fiery as he is, Revanth Reddy alone could simply not pull the entire weight of the Congress in Telangana. For, though the dormant cadres had been somewhat activated during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, a bickering top leadership meant nobody was engaging with them to battle the BRS at the grassroots.
This is where the central leadership of Congress, led by Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, and aided by Karnataka’s Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, secretaries in-charge Mansoor Ali Khan and Vishnunadh, began the process of putting the house in order.
Separating the wheat from the chaff was a key process for the Congress central leadership to keep dissent at bay and focus on the task at hand.
An important component in the process were the survey reports and feedback systems put in place by Sunil Kanugolu that helped the party pick a majority of its candidates, build campaign narratives, design its manifesto and guarantees, and even pick the ideal locations for public rallies of its key leaders — locations that would have the most impact.
The single point motivator for Telangana leaders was simple: If they want to emulate Karnataka Congress’ success, unity was key.
The thought behind the overarching narrative and election slogan was simple — play up the feeling of fatigue and yearning for change that was evident at the ground level among voters. Thus was born “Maarpu Kaavali, Congress Raavali” (which loosely translates to “We Want Change, Congress Should Come”) allowing the party to present Congress as the alternative to a BRS dogged by anti-incumbency.
Sensing the feeling among people that BRS leaders — from Chief Minister KCR to ministers and their MLAs — were inaccessible and arrogant, the Congress strategy team gave Rahul Gandhi the task of reiterating the “Dorala Telangana vs Prajala Telangana” line, making it a battle of the “people” versus the “lords”, an allusion also to the BRS brass.
The feeling, already prevalent among people, turned into a narrative.
Fully aware that it did not have a structure as strong as the BRS at the grassroots, the Congress deployed some heavy artillery from other states — especially from Karnataka, despite ridicule from the BRS. There is no leader in the Congress as tall in stature as KCR. The party instead invoked Indira Gandhi to tug at senior voters’ sentiments.
With proven results in Karnataka, the Congress relied heavily on surveys to decide on candidates, even as it carefully worked out caste combinations. While some of the seats had to be given to candidates under lobbying of prominent leaders, a majority were chosen on winnability.
The Congress didn’t make in Telangana the mistake it did in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh of illogically rejecting all and any alliance and compromise — big or small. The Telangana Congress gave up one seat to the CPI (which it won), and drafted in other smaller parties as allies or endorsers.
In an already welfare-oriented state like Telangana, with KCR seen as a “welfare scheme king”, the Congress was probably aware that its guarantees wouldn’t be as effective as they were in Karnataka.
Hence, along with the announcement on guarantees, the party also focused on core burning issues in the state like unemployment and price rise that became the central theme of all its leaders’ interactions, placing them in the context of the Kaleshwaram barrage damage and, of course, corruption.
Thanks to a last-minute push by its central leadership in rallies, key leaders pulling their weight in their constituencies, a near-perfect perception game with leaders from other parties flocking to it, enthused cadres, multiple observers and election managers for critical seats, and engaging online and offline campaigns designed by its strategist, the Congress emerged as the most viable alternative to the ruling dispensation.
It was the one thing that voters, tired of the decade-long rule of the BRS, were looking for in Telangana.
The next challenge for Congress lies in keeping its house in order while it picks its leader in the state, and prepping for Lok Sabha polls 2024.
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