He will be at Indervelli to lay the foundation stone for a smriti vanam in memory of the Indervelli Martrys and address a public meeting.
Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy. (X)
After the Congress’ triumphant victory in the recent Assembly elections, Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy is gearing up for an encore in the ensuing Lok Sabha polls.
In a few days, he will be sounding the bugle for the party troops, urging them to gird their loins for the electoral challenge that lies ahead. The party’s national leadership has boldly set a target of winning 12 Parliamentary seats — out of 17 — in Telangana.
Revanth Reddy is poised to deliver his first public address — since assuming power — outside Hyderabad at Indervelli in the Adilabad district, likely on 2 February.
Meanwhile, the Pradesh Election Committee is scheduled to convene on Tuesday, 30 January, to strategise and prepare for the upcoming elections, addressing the party’s status in each Lok Sabha constituency.
The Congress holds three Lok Sabha seats in the state — Nalgonda, Bhongir, and Malkajgiri — which have now fallen vacant after the recent Assembly elections.
The Chief Minister, also serving as the PCC President, is expected to make a whirlwind tour of the state to drum up support for the party.
Simultaneously, the party is in the process of identifying potential candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, soliciting lists of candidates, along with their strengths and weaknesses, from District Congress Committee (DCC) presidents.
The Congress is also expecting defections from other parties as its stock is up in the state.
Revanth Reddy is preparing for his Indervelli meeting with sentimental reverence for the tribal village. He attributes his success to the tribal village, having launched his Assembly election campaign there, and now seeks to repeat the gesture for the Lok Sabha polls.
Indervelli holds a dark historical event — the Indervelli massacre of 1981, where over 40 tribals were gunned down during a meeting advocating for their land rights against non-tribal encroachment.
While only 13 deaths were reported at the time, the unofficial account of the incident is that the police had set fire to many bodies secretly to reduce the number of deaths. It was T Anjaiah who was heading the Congress-led government then.
Interestingly, Revanth Reddy will be the first Chief Minister to visit Indervelli since the massacre. He is expected to lay the foundation stone for a smriti vanam in memory of the Indervelli Martrys.
The Chief Minister has already indicated what to expect from him at Indervelli. Speaking at the party polling booth agents conference in Hyderabad recently, he dared the BRS to brace for his visit to the tribal town.
Reddy had said, as the “head mason” — a term the Opposition uses to taunt him — he would build a tomb for the BRS and its leaders. He also took a dig at KCR, who is being described as a tiger, and said that he would be caught in a cage once he steps out into the midst of people.
Another reason why Revanth Reddy chose Indervelli to begin his campaign is that he is determined to break the hold of the BJP on the tribal-dominated Adilabad constituency.
At present, BJP’s Soyam Bapu Rao is representing the constituency in Lok Sabha and the Assembly results also came in favour of the saffron party. Of the seven Assembly segments in the constituency, the BJP won four, the BRS two, and the Congress had to be content with a lone seat — Khanapur.
This is precisely the reason why Revanth Reddy wants to scuttle BJP’s growth and cut the BRS down to size in the constituency. He has already appointed Danasari Anasuya, alias Seethakka, as in charge of the Adilabad district to pull the tribals away from the BJP’s hold.
The Congress sees the defeat of Bapu Rao from Boath in the recent Assembly elections as a silver lining for it to work with vigour to wrest the Adilabad Lok Sabha constituency from his hold.
The Chief Minister is apparently preparing the ground for his electioneering by taking several decisions that have a direct bearing on the electoral prospects of the party.
For instance, the caste census, which he said would be conducted sooner than later, is intended to woo the BCs who have been demanding it.
In the absence of a caste census, the government is not in a position to know the population divide of castes among the BCs. If this data is available, the government could come up with customised welfare schemes for target groups based on the population of various castes.
Revanth Reddy, on 27 January, said the state government would soon take up the caste census.
Another election-eve measure was the filling of the four MLC vacancies, two under the Governor’s quota and another two under MLAs’ quota.
The appointment of Telangana Jana Samithi Chairman Prof M Kodandaram is expected to keep the party in good stead in Telangana since the former had worked very hard to take the Telangana movement forward.
He is likely to be taken into the Cabinet, should Revanth Reddy decide to expand it before the elections.
Prof Kodandaram, as the Chairman of the Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC), was instrumental in organising agitations like the “Sakala Janula Samme”, “Million March”, and “Sagara Haram”, which were a huge success, exerting tremendous pressure on the UPA-II government. Buckling under the pressure, the Union government then awarded Telangana state.
By sending Prof Kodandaram to the Upper House, Revanth Reddy sent out a message that it was the Congress and not the BRS that could stake a claim for the Telangana movement and the creation of Telangana state. It is considered a political masterstroke to check the BRS from using Telangana sentiment in its favour.
The Chief Minister also nominated noted journalist Amer Ali Khan of Siasat Urdu Daily to the council under the Governor’s quota, which is expected to solve the lack of representation for the Muslim minorities in the Congress in the Assembly.
The defeat of the two Muslim candidates in the Assembly elections — former Indian cricket captain Mohammad Azharuddin and former minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir, left the Congress with no Muslim members in the Assembly.
This apart, Revanth Reddy has been acquiring necessary ammo for attacking the BRS, which is still a powerful force with 39 MLAs.
Besides launching a verbal assault on the BRS, Revanth is also expected to lay bare the “corrupt” and “inefficient” rule of the KCR’s dispensation and how hollow the pink party’s claims have been in regard to Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS).
He has also constituted a high-level expert committee to go into the factors that led to the sinking of the piers of the Medigadda barrage project, which may find a place in his address at Indervelli, to damn the BRS.
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