Telangana: With five aspirants for the CM’s post, Congress battles a familiar old problem

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. (Reuters photo/File)

After the morale-boosting victory in Karnataka and Congress sniffing blood in Telangana, a rat race of sorts has begun in the pollbound state for the coveted Chief Minister’s post, well before the assembly elections in December. The crab mentality is staring at Priyanka Gandhi, who is arriving in Telangana for an election rally on July 20 with the coming fracas laid bare during an overseas visit by the state PCC president A Revanth Reddy.

Revanth, interacting with NRIs in the US a few days ago, lent a new twist to the CM quest by pitchforking an Adivasi woman lawmaker to the frontlines, saying “Even Seethakka could be our party’s CM candidate if the situation arises.”

Seethakka or Dansari Anasuya, currently representing Mulugu assembly segment in Telangana’s tribal belt, was right by his side when Revanth made such a pitch. Seethakka’s projection is seen as a counter move by Revanth to scuttle the chances of Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, a Dalit leader heading the Congress Legislature Party, while advancing his own case.

Meanwhile, the optics suggest an SC vs ST slugfest for the CM’s post, which suits nearly everyone.

Five CMs In Waiting

Mallu, a three-time MLA from Khammam district and former Deputy Speaker in undivided Andhra Pradesh, shot into the limelight as a potential Dalit leader in the Congress party in the run-up to the elections with his grueling padayatra that drew Rahul Gandhi to a mammoth rally marking its culmination some weeks ago. His padayatra had gone on in parallel to Revanth’s bus yatra.

Vikramarka enjoys the backing of Revanth’s rivals, mostly from his own Reddy community, and the SC lobby within the party. The presence of Mallikarjun Kharge at the helm of the Congress has also come as a boost to Bhatti’s prospects.

While this goes on, the CM’s post is also being hotly contested among the Reddys. Those who have lined up besides Revanth include Capt N Uttamkumar Reddy and Komatireddy Venkata Reddy. To their credit, all the three Reddys weathered the Modi wave of 2019 and won the Parliament elections in 2019.

With five aspirants in the fray – the three Reddys, Dalit leader Bhatti, and Seethakka, a tribal leader with a left-wing extremist background, it is quite a crowded field for the Congress. Dalits account for 15 percent of the population, tribals 9 percent, and the socially dominant Reddys an estimated 7 percent of the population. Ironically, the party has just five MLAs in the present assembly and now as many CM aspirants.

Wheels Within Wheels

Revanth’s rivals, claiming to be the party’s hardcore loyalists who have stuck with the party through thick and thin, especially in the post-2014 phase where KCR ruthlessly engineered defections in Congress, have branded Revanth as Chandrababu Naidu’s covert plant in the Congress as he had crossed over from TDP.

Revanth, an upstart in Congress politics, has had a quick rise to state party chief in a short span, and this has led to strong opposition against him from the party’s old guard. Venkata Reddy was vocal in his criticism of the party high command’s choice of Revanth Reddy as the PCC president in 2021.

Venkata Reddy, who openly backed Bhatti’s foot march, was quick to react against Revanth’s projection of Seethakka. “If our party were to choose an Adivasi as a CM’s face, why Seethakka alone. We also have a party loyalist Podem Veeraiah, a three-time Adivasi MLA from Bhadhrachalam ”, Reddy shot back.

Congress’s Dalit CM Quest

Given the intense competition among the Reddy claimants for CM, Bhatti seems to be emerging as a consensus candidate from the non-Reddys. The anti-Revanth group contends the Congress with a Dalit as a CM face can score over the ruling BRS headed by K. Chandrasekhar Rao or KCR who failed to deliver his promise to ensure a Dalit as the first Chief Minister of Telangana state.

The Congress has credited itself with delivery of social justice in state politics by helping undivided Andhra Pradesh have Damodaram Sanjeevaiah as its first Dalit Chief Minister. Then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru preferred Damodaram over a couple of powerful Reddy aspirants, Kasu Brahmananda Reddy and AC Subba Reddy, and Alluri Satyanarayana Raju, a Kshatriya, to succeed Neelam Sanjiva Reddy as the CM in 1960. That Neelam replaced Damodaram Sanjeevaiah after keeping the latter in the saddle for just two years and 60 days is a different story.

In the normal course of Congress politics, PCC presidents leading the party in state elections tend to be ahead in the race to become the CLP leader and subsequently the CM unless factional equations are titled sharply against them as had happened recently in Karnataka and earlier in Rajasthan. For Congress, there is another worry, one that has dogged it for long, of so many claimants for the top post leading to the party working at cross-purposes during electioneering.

Will Bhatti be the next Damodaram Sanjeevaiah for Telangana – a dream that KCR failed to realise – and help the Congress win over a large segment of Dalit votes at the hustings? Everything depends on the voters of Telangana and the electoral performance of the Congress, which conveys the impression that the CM aspirants may just be jumping the gun here.

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.