It’s a dream come true for Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president A Revanth Reddy, a dream which he has been nurturing since 2015, when he was still in Telugu Desam Party.
In the infamous cash-for-vote scam video, he was clearly heard telling nominated MLA Stevenson that he would become the chief minister of Telangana one day or the other, as only he had the capability to consolidate the Reddy community.
So, on Thursday afternoon, Revanth will be taking over as the new chief minister of Telangana state and fulfilling his ambition of leading the state.
There are a lot of commonalities between Revanth Reddy and his Andhra Pradesh counterpart Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy. Apart from the fact that both are from the powerful Reddy community, there are other similarities.
Jagan had no experience of being part of the government either in the state or in the Centre. His first electoral debut was in 2009 when he got elected as an MP from Kadapa.
Though his father late Y S Rajasekhar Reddy made an attempt to see that he would get at least a minister of state in the Manmohan Singh cabinet, it did not materialise, as he was just a political novice.
In 2011, he came out of the Congress and floated his own YSR Congress party. So, he was an MP till 2014 when he first contested as an MLA. But he could not come to power; so, he never got a chance to be part of the government. In 2019, he straightaway became the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh.
Similarly, Revanth Reddy, too, had been an MLA in 2009 and 2014, but since he was in opposition Telugu Desam Party, he could not get a chance to become a minister. In 2019, he lost from Kodangal, but got elected as an MP from Malkajgiri. Since he was in Congress, he had got no chance to be part of the government at the centre.
So, like Jagan, he, too, is directly becoming the chief minister of Telangana without having an experience of serving as a minister.
Thirdly, like Jagan, Revanth is also a younger chief minister and he has to lead a team comprising mostly seniors like Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, N Uttam Kumar Reddy, Damodar Rajanarasimha, D Sridhar Babu, Tummala Nageshwar Rao etc.
Jagan, too, had and has seniors in his cabinet like Balineni, Peddireddy, Dharmana, Botsa etc. The only difference is that Jagan is the founder of YSRCP and all of them had joined later.
But in case of Telangana Congress, all the senior had been there for several decades and Revanth is a new entrant. So, it will be an uphill task for him to take them along and satisfy their demands.