Opinion Express View: In Telangana, an opportunity for Congress

Chief Minister-in-waiting A Revanth Reddy led the Congress party’s campaign in Telangana — its sole spark in an otherwise dismal showing in the recently-held assembly elections in five states. Now, Reddy faces a slew of challenges on both the governance and political fronts. The new chief minister of a young state will play a key role in seizing, or not, the opportunity his party has to consolidate its presence in South India as well as lay the ground for a model of governance it can showcase at the national level, ahead of the general election next year.

The biggest task for the new government will be to find ways to finance the exuberant promises made during the campaign. The Congress’s “six guarantees” — Rs 2 lakh loan waiver to farmers, free travel to women in RTC buses, monthly financial assistance to women, Rs 16,000 per acre under Rythu Bharosa, gas cylinders at Rs 500 and free power up to 200 units — are bound to be a strain on the exchequer. Given that these expenses, in addition to pensions and salaries for government employees, will eat into the available space for capital expenditure, Reddy’s government will have to carefully balance the demands of populism and pragmatism. The new government must also maintain and enhance Hyderabad’s status as one of India’s leading tech hubs — something that former state IT minister K T Rama Rao is credited with doing. Then, within Congress, Reddy is a relative newcomer, having joined the party in 2017 — he was with the TDP and the ABVP before that. His meteoric rise has reportedly unsettled entrenched factions within the state Congress. As chief minister, he will need to manage egos, iron out rivalries and keep the battling camps working in harmony. To take leaders such as Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, Uttam Kumar Reddy and Sridhar Babu along — each with a political base of his own and a longer history in the party — will not be an easy task. In this, he can take a leaf or two out of his colleague’s book in neighbouring Karnataka — from CM Siddaramaiah, who also came to the Congress from another party but has managed to cement his place at the helm, while working with erstwhile rivals.

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Less than a decade after its formation, Telangana voted out the regional party, BRS, and leader, K Chandrashekar Rao, who had become the face of the movement for statehood. Reddy led protests against the KCR government on the issues of corruption, leaked exam papers and allegations of poorly implemented welfare schemes. With a near clean slate — the last time Congress held office in the region, Andhra Pradesh had not been bifurcated — the new government has a chance to firm up the party’s hold in the southern state ahead of 2024. Given its terrible shrinking in its erstwhile bastions and strongholds, the Congress can ill afford to let go of its Telangana opportunity.