Telangana: A crown of thorns awaits Revanth Reddy

In some consolation for the Congress in the face of the saffron wave after it lost Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the party ousted the Bharat Rashtra Samithi in Telangana.

Telangana Chief Minister-designate Anumula Revanth Reddy and his bitter rival KCR or Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao have something in common: What seemed like a rejection was actually a good break in their careers. One may call it a quirk of luck but it is the identical manner in which they responded to a rejection that stands out in the final reckoning.

Revanth & KCR: The Common Strand

Revanth, who is scheduled to be sworn in as Telangana’s second Chief Minister on December 7 at LB Stadium in Hyderabad, wouldn’t have reached this enviable position now had KCR offered him a TRS/BRS ticket for the Midjil Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency some two decades ago. Eventually, Revanth quit the then Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS, now known as Bharat Rashtra Samithi) to successfully fight that ZPTC election as an independent.

KCR too wouldn’t have walked into the annals of the Telangana movement as the achiever of statehood and the two-time Chief Minister of the state, had he not been denied a cabinet berth in undivided Andhra by then chief minister Chandrababu Naidu in 2001. KCR quit the TDP and formed the TRS, and what followed has become part of Telangana history. It was the fire in the belly that made them trailblazers, ultimately leading their paths to cross in a titanic duel last month. Truely, fortune favours the bold.

For the 54-year old Revanth Reddy, the ascent, meteoric though, did not come out of someone’s charity. Revanth, hailing from an agricultural family of seven brothers and one sister in Kondareddypalli in Mahabubnagar district, rose through the ranks from humble beginnings.

In a chequered political career, he began his innings through right wing politics as an activist of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the RSS. Revanth later worked as a journalist, for a brief spell, in the Sangh’s Telugu mouthpiece Jagrithi and tried his hand in business as a printing press owner for sometime before he took to full-time politics.

But he received his political breakthrough when he joined the TDP. Revanth was sent to the assembly in undivided Andhra Pradesh from Kodangal twice on a TDP ticket, in 2009 and 2014. He went through a rough patch as a TDP legislator when he landed in jail in the vote-for-cash case in 2015 which, according to him, was witch-hunting by the KCR government. His mentor Naidu was also a co-accused in the case.

Swimming With Sharks In Congress

Revanth quit the TDP after its swift decline following the bifurcation of the state and embraced the Congress in 2017. The road for Reddy in the Congress was not smooth. The party was ridden with factional feuds and low on morale after its drubbing for two successive terms, besides a large-scale exodus of leaders and cadres to the ruling BRS.

Revanth lost the 2018 assembly polls from Kodangal following a determined KCR bid to oust him, but a few months later luck turned in his favour in the Lok Sabha elections with a victory from the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha constituency, which got him noticed by the high command.

Revanth with his “outsider” tag getting the TPCC president’s post in 2021 was the last straw for the old guard. Despite the barbs and the road blocks laid in his path by intra-party rivals, Revanth persevered and finally won the respect of the party high command.

What came as a blessing for Revanth was that no one in Telangana Congress had the ability to give KCR a taste of his own medicine. Until the Karnataka elections gave an all-round boost to the Congress, Revanth was virtually a one-man army in his battle against the powerful and charismatic KCR in the face of non-cooperation from his intra-party rivals, who were more in hot pursuit of the CM post rather than in strengthening the party on the ground.

Revanth repaying the high command for the trust which it reposed in him by delivering Telangana is also a saving grace for the grand old party, after the big losses in the three Hindi heartland states.

Tough Road Ahead As CM

Though the CM’s mantle falls on him, there is little in store to be cheerful about. Revanth, with no past experience even as a cabinet minister, is considered inexperienced to run the show. Rival groups represented by Komatireddy brothers (Venkata Reddy and Rajagopal Reddy), Capt N Uttam Kumar Reddy and Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka – all contenders for the CM post – could end up pulling the government in different directions.

His first daunting challenge is the formation of the council of ministers by taking all the groups on board. Heading a government with hardly four seats more than the simple majority is a tight-rope walk, and the prospect of political instability down the road cannot be ruled out.

The precarious situation may warrant Revanth poaching BRS MLAs as KCR did in his two terms, repeating the precedence of defections as was the case during the KCR rule. Like the Congress under Revanth’s leadership, the TRS won only 63 seats in 2014, which kept KCR perpetually on tenterhooks.

The other foremost and critical challenge that stares at Revanth is realisation of his party’s poll promises – the “Six Guarantees”. KCR’s tilt – heavily in favour of welfare – has pushed the state’s debt up to over Rs 6 lakh crore, making it difficult for Revanth to keep his high-cost six guarantees that include waiver of farm loans up to Rs 2 lakh for each farmer, free travel in state-owned RTC buses for women, 10 gram gold and Rs 1 lakh cash for brides.

What can smoothen Revanth’s ride will be his ability to give the party high command a maximum number of seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. For that he has to brave  a tough contest from the BJP and BRS as United Andhra Pradesh’s then CM YS Rajasekhar Reddy managed in 2009. That would silence the seniors in the party chafing under having to serve under a rank newcomer.

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.