Hyderabad: On September 18, at a massive rally at Gajwel, the constituency of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), A. Revanth Reddy, president of the state Congress party, sent a strong message to both the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP): that the Congress under his leadership would not only strongly challenge the TRS in Telangana, but also the saffron party’s space in the opposition. 

The rally had been organised by the Congress as part of the Dalit Girijana Atma Gaurava Dandora, a gathering of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, in KCR’s home constituency.

While most politicians make grandiose claims in their speeches, it appears that Revanth Reddy is serious about his challenge. After taking over as the state Congress president on June 26, he charted out a marathon agitation from October 2 to December 9 named dharma yudhamor holy war against KCR for reneging on the promise made by his party during the statehood movement to address the problem of unemployment. KCR, who has now been chief minister of Telangana for seven years, was then the face of the statehood movement with his three electrifying promises – neellu, nidhulu, niyamakalu (water, funds jobs).

Revanth was given the reins of the state Congress after the Grand Old party lost two state elections in a row as well as a huge number of its lawmakers to the TRS. For example, when the Congress won 19 assembly seats in the 2018 elections, as many as 12 of them quit and joined KCR’s party.