The following article was written for MyInd Makers. Pasting it here for reference:
In the 2018 Telangana Assembly election, we all know that KCR won by a landslide, winning 86 out of the 119 seats. The Congress party emerged as the main opposition party by winning 19 seats. Immediately after winning the election, KCR appointed his son KTR as the Working President of TRS. And mysteriously, the topmost priority of KTR was to start splitting the Congress party!
KTR went about this task methodically. MLA after MLA was joining the TRS, only by accepting a shawl by KTR. They all didn’t join at one go. They were taking their time to meet KTR and announce their intention to join TRS. None of them resigned from their membership too. Within a couple of months, 12 out of the 19 MLAs of the Congress joined the TRS party. 12/19 is still not 2/3rd of the party. The Speaker can only announce this split as valid only if 2/3rd of the party legislators shifts to another party.
One of the MLAs who stayed back with the party was the then TPCC President, Uttam Kumar Reddy. He was asked to contest as an MP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Uttam Kumar Reddy won the MP seat, thereby prompting a byelection for this Assembly seat. So now, the Congress party has 18 MLAs. The 12 MLAs that shifted to TRS now submitted a memorandum to the Speaker in June 2019 saying they are “merging” the Congress legislature party with the TRS, given that they now have 2/3rd members joining them!
We can debate what was the need for KCR and KTR to snatch MLAs away from the Congress party, but the problems of the Congress party didn’t end with 12 out of their 18 MLAs joining the TRS. While these internal rumblings were going on a weekly basis, the elections for GHMC were held in December 2020. Such was the disastrous performance of the Congress in these elections (winning 2/150 seats), that Uttam Kumar Reddy immediately resigned as the President of the TPCC.
Enter the great central leadership of the mighty Congress party now. They took their own sweet time of 7 months to appoint a new TPCC chief. They chose another MP of the Congress party, Revanth Reddy for this post. Revanth Reddy joined the Congress party in November 2017 and was made one of the “working presidents” of the party almost immediately. And within just 4 years of him joining the party, he was made the state unit President – which upset many of the long-timers in the party.
While the Congress was going through defeat after defeat, dissidence after dissidence, crisis after crisis – the BJP was gaining strength – winning 2 key assembly by-polls and upsetting the TRS in the GHMC elections. Survey after survey was also indicating that the BJP’s vote percentage is increasing in the state. Amidst this growth of the BJP, dissident voices also began increasing in the Congress party. A prominent former MP to leave the party was Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, who eventually joined the BJP recently.
One MP, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, strongly urged Rahul Gandhi to step in and solve the problems of the Congress. Rahul Gandhi promptly stepped in, called for a meeting of many key leaders, and after about 4-5 hours, he declared that Revanth Reddy is the boss and everyone should listen to him.
Komatireddy Venkat Reddy’s brother Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy is an MLA. And he is one of the 6 Congress MLAs who stayed back with the party. Rajagopal Reddy finally decided that enough is enough and he cannot work with Revanth Reddy anymore. Rajagopal Reddy resigned from both the Congress party and as an MLA. He has now joined the BJP and will fight the impending byelection.
While this drama was happening, a long-time spokesperson of the Congress party, Dr. Dasoju Sravan announced his resignation from the party! In an explosive press conference, he talked about the details he presented to Rahul Gandhi in great detail, on the problems he is facing with Revanth Reddy; how he is not able to take the sidelining anymore and how he will contribute to the fight against KCR and TRS!
In summary, the Congress party lost 13 out of the 19 MLAs from 2018; 1 out of the 3 MPs is sulking on being sidelined, and many constituency-level leaders are leaving the party to join other parties! As always, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi aren’t really bothered about the exodus and the crisis hitting the Congress party here. The rise of the BJP and the fall of the TRS is also coinciding with the fall of the Congress party. Elections are still nearly 1.2 years away, so it remains to be seen if this trend will continue or if it will bounce back to a 3-way fight between these parties. As of now, the Congress is clearly facing a crisis.
0 comments:
Post a Comment