Congress’s pick for Telangana Speaker is well-liked leader, may get support from across the aisle

Gaddam Prasad Kumar is the second Mala leader to get prominent role, in message to the state’s SCs, who make up 18% of the population

Gaddam Prasad Kumar, Telangana speaker, congress

Gaddam Prasad Kumar is one of the two Mala faces set to get a prominent position in the Congress government (X/@PrasadKumarG999)

Gaddam Prasad Kumar, a two-time Congress MLA from Vikarabad, is all set to become the Speaker of Telangana’s third Legislative Assembly.

Last Saturday, after a majority of the newly elected MLAs took their oaths, Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan issued a notification for the election of Telangana Assembly Speaker on December 14. The Governor will address both the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council on December 15.

Kumar, 59, described by his party colleagues as a soft-spoken and well-liked leader, filed his nomination for Speaker’s post on Saturday. Apart from all 64 Congress MLAs supporting him, the seven AIMIM MLAs may also extend their support after Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’s outreach to the party through his suggestion to the Governor to appoint Akbaruddin Owaisi as the Protem Speaker.

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He contested for the first time on a Congress ticket in the 2009 Assembly elections and won comfortably. In 2012, he was inducted into the Cabinet of N Kiran Kumar Reddy as Minister for Handlooms and Textiles. In 2014, when the state was bifurcated, he lost to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS, now Bharat Rashtra Samithi or BRS) candidate B Sanjeev Rao, and to Dr M Anand in 2018.

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In the election held on November 30, he defeated the BRS’s Anand by a margin of more than 12,800 votes.

Kumar is one of the two Mala faces set to get a prominent position in the Congress government – the other is Deputy CM Mallu Bhatti Vikaramarka. C Damodar Rajanarsimha is the sole Madiga in the Cabinet. Both Malas and Madigas fall under the Scheduled Castes (SC), which account for around 18% of the state’s population.

The Congress won 15 of the 19 SC seats in the state in 2023 polls. By nominating Kumar as the Speaker, and with Vikramarka as the Deputy CM, the Congress is sending a strong message to the SC communities.

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“The USP is not that he belongs to the SC community, his USP is that is a very humble and down-to-earth person. He is the party’s best choice to be the Speaker, in my opinion,” Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson Syed Nizamuddin said.

If there is only one nomination, Protem Speaker Akbaruddin Owaisi will announce his unanimous election. If there is more than one nomination, there will be an election.

After the Speaker is elected, the Assembly will hold the Deputy Speaker election. Important positions like Chief Whip will also be allocated after that.

S Madhusudhana Chary was the first Speaker of Telangana Legislative Assembly. He served from June 9, 2014 to January 16, 2019. The second speaker was Pocharam Srinivas Reddy who served from January 17 to December 6, 2023.