How Karnataka win shaped Congress' revival in Telangana

New Delhi: About six months ago, the Congress was in the doldrums in Telangana and struggling at the number three spot with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerging as the main challenger to the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).

Six months later, the Congress defeated the BRS to assume power in India's youngest state though the grand old party romped home with a wafer-thin majority. While the Congress won 64 seats, the BRS bagged 39, BJP eight, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) won seven and the Communist Party of India (CPI) one.

The sudden turnaround came after the party's thumping victory in neighbouring Karnataka in May this year.

Its organisational machinery started picking up pace after poll strategist Sunil Kanugolu shifted from Karnataka to Telangana to take charge of the party's election management. The narrative set by Kanugolu in Karnataka had found resonance across the state and in Telangana too he replicated a similar poll strategy.

During the campaigning, the Congress promised six guarantees including financial support for women, farmers, and senior citizens. The challenge was to ensure that the promises reached every voter in the state.

For this, many senior leaders from across the country were deputed. Take for example, senior Congress leader from Tamil Nadu CD Meyappan who was given the responsibility of Zahirabad Lok Sabha constituency with seven assembly segments, including Kamareddy where BJP’s K Venkata Ramana Reddy defeated both former chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, popularly known as KCR, and probable chief minister A Revanth Reddy.

Meyappan and his team carried out a comprehensive door-to-door campaign for days to explain the finer points of the promises made in the Congress manifesto to the people of the state.

Unlike other poll-bound states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the Congress put up a united fight in Telangana with leaders burying their differences for the larger goal of throwing out the BRS government. Leaders like Meyappan reached out to a majority of voters and succeeded in convincing them about their party's guarantees.

All these efforts helped in the transformation that seemed impossible some months ago given that Congress candidate Balmoor Venkat Narsing Rao bagged just 3014 votes and lost his security deposit in the by-elections to the Huzurabad assembly elections in November 2021. The seat was then won by BJP's Eatala Rajender who defeated TRS candidate Gellu Srinivas Yadav. While Rajender bagged 1,07,022 votes Yadav secured 83,167 votes.

This embarrassment was followed by another humiliating defeat in Munugode bypoll in November last year. In a fiercely contested by-election, TRS candidate Koosukuntla Prabhakar Reddy defeated BJP's Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy by over 10,000 votes. While TRS secured 96,598 votes, the BJP got 86,697 votes. Palvai Sravanthi of the Congress finished a distant third with 23,906 votes.

Rajagopal Reddy had won the seat in 2018 on a Congress ticket and later quit the party to join the BJP. He returned to Congress just before the just-concluded assembly elections and regained the seat convincingly by over 40,000 votes. However, the Congress continued to be at the number three spot in Huzurabad as BRS candidate Kaushik Reddy Padi defeated Eatala Rajender by over 16,000 votes.

Both Huzurabad and Munugode by-elections were considered to be the most expensive by-polls in the history of Independent India as candidates went on a spending spree to woo the voters.

Congress leaders claim that there will be a ripple effect in Andhra Pradesh in the same way the party's victory in Karnataka had in Telangana. As of now, the Congress revival in Andhra Pradesh looks difficult but not impossible.