Congress’s Telangana worry: Too many Reddy leaders, too few from OBCs

Telangana Congress

The Congress Working Committee (CWC) session in Hyderabad was expected to see the merger of YS Sharmila’s YSR Telangana Party with the Congress. But it failed to happen as the moves hit certain roadblocks at the last minute.

The admission of Sharmila, the firebrand daughter of Congress former Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, was expected to help the Congress, which suffered an exodus of top leaders in the last 10 years in Telangana. The party is hoping to build optics around its catchy call of Ghar Wapsi to its former leaders, as a signal to the Telangana electorate of the Congress’s chances in the upcoming assembly polls.

Sharmila Finds Few Takers

Hoping to capitalise on Sharmila’s influence in the Andhra-Telangana border areas and in the GHMC (Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation) area inhabited by Andhra settlers, the Congress high command had allowed her to have one-on-one interactions with Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to make way for her party’s merger.

Senior Congress leader KVP Ramachandra Rao, a close aide of YS Rajasekhara Reddy, had been pitching for Sharmila’s entry. But such moves apparently met with strong resistance from the party’s state president A Revanth Reddy, accompanied by charges of a nexus between KVP and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.

Reddy, at a party meeting in Hanumakonda, publicly attacked KVP for helping KCR, his fellow- Velama caste man, by bringing Sharmila, despite her Andhra origins, into the Congress. “Sharmila’s admission will be a blessing in disguise for KCR to raise the Andhra bogey and stoke self-respect sentiment as he successfully did in the last elections in 2018”, Revanth said.

The precondition of the Congress leadership – that Sharmila should move over to her “home” state to pit herself against her Chief Minister brother YS Jaganmohan Reddy and help the Congress come out of its moribund  state might not be acceptable to her and this could also be another hitch for admission.

In an offshoot of simmering feuds within the YS family, Sharmila and her mother Vijayamma were literally hounded out of Andhra Pradesh by Jagan. Sharmila gravitated towards the Congress due to a long-holding narrative that makes the party believe that it is only the powerful Reddys who can beat the mighty KCR or K Chandrashekar Rao and help it ride to power in the coming state elections.

Congress, TRS Vies For Reddys

The Reddys, a dominant community, are estimated to constitute a little over 6 percent of the state’s 3.5 crore population. In Telangana, the Congress despite being led by Reddys, has been out of power for a decade.

Yet, its top brass has handpicked A Revanth Reddy, a TDP turncoat, to head the state Congress, ignoring the claims of several Reddys who included Capt N Uttamkumar Reddy, Komatireddy Venkata Reddy, Marri Sasidhar Reddy, who recently defected to the BJP, T Jeevan Reddy and Jagga Reddy for the top slot.

Even as the Congress, overcrowded with Reddys, is struggling to give space for numerically dominant OBCs who constitute more than 50 percent of the population, a shrewd KCR is out to woo Reddies.The BRS chief has released a list of candidates, allotting 40 seats for Reddys out of 119.

He has accommodated as many as seven Reddys in his 19-member Council of Ministers in his second term. Besides, the BRS government has been liberally helping the community prosper in the realty sector in and around the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) area.

Congress’s Narrow Social Base

With the Reddy-centric focus the Congress is unlikely to engineer a social coalition with OBCs, Dalits and Muslim minorities at the helm in Telangana on the lines of its Karnataka AHINDA model. The power shift to OBCs in Andhra and Telangana has not been as smooth as in neighbouring Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

The power structure of Brahmins in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh was dismantled with the unification of the two states post-Independence. It made way for the emergence of Reddys led by KV Ranga Reddy in Telangana and Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy in Andhra as the unquestioned ruling caste. Since then, the Congress has been stuck with the Reddys and has failed to reach OBCs in both the states.

In both the Telangana and Andhra regions, no potential leader has risen from among OBCs that the Congress could groom to alter the equations. Besides, the OBCs are internally divided on economic and other issues, besides comprising a staggering 140 subcastes, making the task of organising them all the more difficult.  In addition, there is no CM face in Telangana from among the OBCs like Siddaramaiah in Karnataka.

Borrowing the Karnataka Ahinda model to combat KCR with a plank of social justice would put the Congress on a surer footing but the chances of the party coming out of the firm grip of the Reddys looks unlikely, for the foreseeable future.

Gali Nagaraja is a senior journalist, formerly associated with The Hindu, The Times of India, and Hindustan Times for over three decades. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.