Change in the Telangana Congress leadership issue has gained steam with the appointment of D.K. Shiva Kumar as Karnataka PCC president and also its popular leader Jyothiraditya Scindia leaving the party to join the BJP.
Expecting change in Telangana as well in the near future, those in the race are trying to outsmart each other. Interestingly, Malkajgiri MP, A. Revanth Reddy, who has been in the forefront along with a few others for the top post seem to be emerging as the target.
The Parliament member is in jail now on charges of using drone to take visuals of IT Minister and TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao’s farm house in Janwada in alleged violation of GO 111. He was arrested after he took media personnel alleging that the construction was in violation of GO 111.
Despite being in jail for the last few days, no Congress leader has visited him and in fact have accused him of settling ‘personal’ scores with KTR. All top leaders remained silent except issuing statements against his arrest on the first day.
Former Rajya Sabha MP, V. Hanmantha Rao went further ahead alleging Revanth Reddy was using the party to target KTR’s farm house rather than responding to allegations against him in a land case in Gopanpally. How can he accuse only KTR of violating the norms, he asked and He claimed that there are several Congress leaders as well who have constructed farm houses in the catchment area of Gandipet lake.
Sangareddy MLA T. Jayaprakash Reddy, found fault with followers of Revanth Reddy projecting him as the PCC chief linking his fight against the GO 111. He demanded that any agitation on State level issues by the Congress leaders should be discussed in the core committee first.
In fact, he wanted the TPCC chief N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and AICC in-charge for Telangana, R.K. Khuntia to call for the core committee meeting immediately to discuss not only the GO 111 but also leadership issue. No one is above the party in Congress and the ‘nuisance’ created by Revanth’s followers on social media was in fact, harming the party.
Followers of Revanth Reddy, however, say some leaders who were afraid of the growing popularity of their leader were nervous and unnecessarily targeting him.
A senior leader and staunch supporter of Revanth Reddy said criticism was unfair. He had taken up a burning issue and it should have been widely used to target the government but unfortunately differences within Congress had put the real issue on the back burner.
The Malakajgiri MP had also taken up a massive contact programme in his constituency to highlight the government’s failure to allot the promised double bedroom houses even after six years. It was a parallel programme to ‘Pattana Pragathi’ of the government that wanted to reach out to all the towns and cities after the ‘Palle Pragathi’ programme.
