Meet Revanth Reddy, Congress' man in Telangana and the new likely CM

Congress has won Telangana Assembly elections with a comfortable majority of 64 seats out of 119. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President Anumula Revanth Reddy won the Kodangal Assembly by 32,532 votes in the Telangana Assembly elections, the results for which were declared on December 3. He has emerged as the prime leader in the state who helped Congress secure this victory. Besides Kodangal, Revanth Reddy also contested from Kamareddy, where Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR) was also contesting. However, BJP's Venkata Ramana Reddy defeated both these heavy-weight leaders from Kamaredy in a closely contested election.

The 54-year-old leader joined the Congress in June 2021, leaving the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and has managed to script an impressive victory for Congress in this short duration. While there is no final word on it, Revanth Reddy is likely to become the next Chief Minister of Telangana.

 

Revanth Reddy's initial political career

Revanth Reddy was born in November 1969 at Kondareddy Palli of Mahboobnagar district. He studied arts during his graduation and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from A V College, Osmania University and had a keen interest in student politics. He contested his first local body elections and was elected as a Zilla Parishad Territorial Committee (ZPTC) member from Midjil. Later, Revanth Reddy's political career got a major boost when TDP's N Chandrababu Naidu gave him a ticket to contest from the Kodangal Assembly seat, which he has won thrice. He has won the Kodangal Assembly by a margin of 32,532 votes in the Telangana Assembly elections 2023 again.

Revanth Reddy's presence in Telangana politics

Revanth Reddy was elected to the Andhra Pradesh Assembly from Kodangal with over 46 per cent vote share on the TDP ticket in the 2009 elections. He defeated the incumbent five-time Congress MLA Gurunath Reddy to secure his win.

Reddy contested the elections in 2014 from a TDP ticket in the undivided Andhra Pradesh and won the Kodangal seat once again. He was elected as the floor leader of the Telugu Desam Party. However, on October 25, 2017, TDP removed Revanth as the floor leader as there were rumours of him considering a switch to the Congress. These rumours turned out to be true and Revanth Reddy joined the Congress Party on October 31, 2017. Congress appointed him as one of the working presidents of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee.

Revanth Reddy contested the 2018 Telangana Assembly elections on a Congress ticket from Kodangal and lost to TRS (now BRS) candidate Patnam Narender Reddy. This was his first defeat in any election.

Having lost the Kodangal Assembly election to the TRS candidate, Revanth Reddy contested the 2019 general election from the Malkajgiri Lok Sabha constituency as a Congress candidate and won by a margin of 10,919 votes, defeating his closest rival from the TRS.

Revanth Reddy: President of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee

Former Congress President Sonia Gandhi appointed Revanth Reddy as the new president of TPCC in June 2021. Reddy capitalised on the anti-incumbency factor in Telangana. The Congress party added the agenda of welfare by announcing the "six guarantees" in the form of its poll promises and attained success in mobilising the voters.

Besides preparing the state party unit to fight the elections, Revanth Reddy also reached out to disgruntled leaders in the BRS and the BJP and invited them to join the Congress with a promise of a party ticket. He also succeeded in persuading the Congress high command to give tickets to these candidates and prevented the BRS from taking a third term in Telangana.