Telangana Congress welcomes back Kumbam Anil Kumar Reddy to replace BC leader

HYDERABAD: In an unexpected move, immediately after landing in Hyderabad from Delhi, TPCC chief A Revanth Reddy reached out to Kumbam Anil Kumar Reddy —who recently joined the ruling BRS — and welcomed him back into the grand old party. 

The Congress is likely to allot Bhongir ticket to Kumbam, ignoring another aspirant and BC leader Ch Venkanna Yadav.

A day after raising the banner of discontent over the issue of allotting more tickets to BCs, several BC leaders met Nandikanti Sridhar to persuade him to let Mynampally Hanumantha Rao, who belongs to Velama community, to contest from Malkajgiri. Interestingly, a sulking Sridhar accompanied Revanth when he met Kumbam. 

Later speaking to the media, Revanth said that the party high command recognised the “winnability” of Anil and directed the State unit to initiate the dialogue and welcome him back into the party.

“AICC general secretary KC Venugopal explained to me the summary of a survey report, which showed the winnability of Kumbam Anil,” said Revanth. 

It may be mentioned here that Kumbam’s name was not in the list of 1,006 aspirants,  which the screening committee deliberated extensively.

ALSO READ | Discontent brews among BC Congress leaders in Telangana

BC DECLARATION ON OCT 10, SIDDA TO ATTEND
The Congress is planning to announce its BC Declaration on October 10. The party has invited three Chief Ministers, who are from the BC communities, from the Congress-ruled States for the programme.

Veteran leader V Hanumantha Rao said that Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has given his consent to attend the rally on October 10.

However, amidst speculation of the party releasing its first list of candidates in the first week of October, the party’s BC leaders wanted to hold the rally before the tickets are announced.

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