New Telangana Congress chief has task cut out
No one envies the newly appointed TPCC president A Revanth Reddy, who has inherited a Telangana Congress whose body and soul are in a forlorn state. Losing one election after another since the 2018 Assembly polls, the party has been on a relentless downhill journey. As the senior leaders squabbled with one another, the party never inspired faith. At this juncture, Revanth Reddy has his task cut out. He has to bring the disparate elements together, apply a balm to their bruised egos and make the party battle-ready. By asking him to lead the TPCC, his Delhi bosses went along with the perception that Reddys, a dominant caste in Telangana, alone can take on Velamas, another powerful caste, to which Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao belongs.
The party initially feared that a conflagration would flare up if Revanth Reddy was appointed chief as the seniors in the party, cutting across the differences they had among themselves, rose against him as they saw in him a threat to their common interest. The dissidents’ charges against Reddy were that he made a lateral entry into the party only in 2017 and that he carried the taint of the vote for note scam of 2015. His detractors called him a TDP leader in Congress’ clothing and that the party would become the TDP’s proxy. But the dissidence turned out to be not as much as was feared; the new leader put his best foot forward by calling on the senior politicians who opposed him and sought their cooperation, including K Jana Reddy and ailing V Hanumanth Rao. Now Revanth Reddy has to lift the sagging morale of the party workers. This may not be very difficult as he can make them eat out of his hand with his fiery speeches and prepare them for the upcoming by-polls for the Huzurabad Assembly seat where former minister Eatala Rajender is BJP’s candidate and the TRS is hell-bent on winning it. The Congress has not won the seat since 1978 and Revanth has to perform a miracle to make the party reach at least the second position as this may prove to be a game-changer for the party as it nears the next Assembly polls in 2023.