Revanth Reddy, Telangana’s first Congress CM, is guest at Express Adda today

On Tuesday, Reddy will be the guest at Express Adda in New Delhi. He will be in conversation with Anant Goenka, Executive Director, The Indian Express Group, and Liz Mathew, Deputy Editor.

In a party that has traditionally struggled with factionalism, Reddy, 55, has so far managed to take everyone along despite the presence of a number of old-timers in the state unit of the Congress. It helps that he has the support of the national leadership and shares a good rapport with senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi.

Reddy’s term has been marked by his government’s management of the recent flash floods and his aggressive drive against land encroachment in capital Hyderabad. With the Opposition accusing Reddy of using the Hyderabad Disaster Response and Asset Protection Agency (HYDRAA) — a body mandated to tackle illegal encroachment on water bodies — for political vendetta, Reddy had declared that his drive against encroachments was unstoppable.

Reddy has traversed the entire political spectrum in the state — after short stints in the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the RSS, and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS, now BRS), he joined the TDP and later, the Congress.

He won from Kodangal in 2009 and 2014 on a TDP ticket, but lost the seat in 2018. In 2019, he was elected as an MP from Malkajgiri on a Congress ticket.

During the recent elections, Reddy took on KCR and his family, with many in the Congress attributing the party’s re-emergence in a state where it was almost routed — the party had won only 19 seats in 2018 — to his perseverance and the fierce fight he put up against the TRS.

The cordial ties that Reddy shares with Naidu are expected to come in handy as Andhra Pradesh and Telangana work on resolving pending matters related to the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014.