Why Revanth Reddy is right in cosying up to PM Modi

I first wrote about Anumula Revanth Reddy nearly five years ago. Rahul Gandhi, then the president of the Indian National Congress (INC), was on a two-day visit to Hyderabad from August 13, 2018. Nearly nine months before that visit, Revanth Reddy resigned from Telugu Desam Party (TDP) as its working president for Telangana, and joined Congress in the presence of Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on October 31, 2017.

Interestingly, though he was Kodangal MLA at that time, Revanth Reddy was not allowed to welcome Rahul Gandhi when the latter landed in Hyderabad on his two-day visit to Telangana. Writing in my column at that time as to what Rahul Gandhi should do to revive the grand old party; I emphasised the need for encouraging local leaders like Revanth Reddy in States. The other suggestion I made was that Rahul Gandhi should become street-smart. I don’t know whether anyone from the Congress read my article, but a Telugu friend from the US called me and told me that he listened to speeches of Revanth Reddy after reading my column and found the young leader was quite impressive. He had no idea about Revanth Reddy before that. In those days, the Kodangal MLA was not popular outside the two Telugu states.

Incidentally, soon after Rahul’s visit to Telangana that time, Revanth Reddy was made the working president of Telangana Congress. In the subsequent elections to the State Assembly in December 2018, he turned out to be the star campaigner for Congress, campaigning for the party candidates in several constituencies. But he was forced to confine himself to Kodangal constituency in the last three days before the 2018 elections as Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), then TRS, was hell-bent on defeating him in his backyard. That was the time when I happened to travel with him for a few hours during his electioneering in Kodangal. I found him to be extremely popular in his constituency, but sadly he lost that election. A calculated risk-taker, Revanth used that defeat as a stepping stone to become Malkajgiri MP in the 2019 General Elections. And he has not looked back since then. He went on to become Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president in July 2021 and the second Chief Minister of Telangana two years later in December 2023. I interacted with him several times in the last few years and every time I met him he exuded immense confidence that BRS founder and the then Chief Minister Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), who appeared unchallenged, was not invincible. His strong belief came true in the last elections.

Given his intrinsic characteristic as a pragmatic politician, it did not come as a surprise to me when Revanth Reddy recently described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as bade bhai (elder brother) for Telangana. He also went on to say that no State would be able to progress without the active support of the central government. He sought the Prime Minister’s support in game-changing projects like Musi river front development and metro rail expansion.

But Revanth Reddy represents Congress party while Narendra Modi is the undisputed leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). And the two parties are archrivals at the national level. Modi uses every available chance to run down Rahul Gandhi, the current face of the Congress party.

In this backdrop, it’s an audacious move from Revanth Reddy to cosy up to Modi. But Telangana is in dire straits when it comes to finances. The Congress government has come up with a white paper on Telangana State finances that pegged total debt burden at a whopping Rs. 6.72 lakh crore in 2023-24, nearly a 10-fold jump from Rs. 72,658 when Telangana was formed in 2014-15.

In the last one decade, Telangana’s debt-GDP ratio increased to 27.8 per cent from 15.70 per cent in FY16. The annual debt service burden also zoomed to Rs. 32,939 crore in the current fiscal from a low of Rs. 6,954 crore back in FY15.

Given the precarious financial position that Telangana is in, the youngest State of India obviously requires active support from the central government to execute its developmental plans. Furthermore, the Congress party came to power by promising several high-value welfare schemes like Rythu Bharosa and monthly financial support to lakhs of women, among a host of others.

The Revanth Reddy government will not be able to fulfill these promises if the State fails to clock rapid economic growth in the coming years. Perhaps, keeping these challenges in mind, Revanth Reddy stressed the need for active co-operation between the central and State governments when he participated in an official programme attended by the Prime Minister in Adilabad last week.

KCR had taken a confrontational stance against Modi for the past few years at the cost of State’s interests as he nurtured national political ambitions. The BRS chief did not even bother to attend events and programmes of the Prime Minister in Telangana. But Revanth Reddy deserves kudos for keeping petty politics aside and seeking support from the Centre for the development of Telangana.

Of course, it is not the first that Revanth Reddy put the interests of Telangana above everything else. His government signed investments-related memorandum of understanding (MoU) with diversified conglomerate Adani Group at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting at Davos in January. This happened despite the fact that Rahul Gandhi has consistently been criticising Narendra Modi for giving what he calls undue benefits to the Adani group. Taken in the political and administrative perspective, the stance taken by Revanth Reddy augurs well for Telangana in the long run.

Moreover, he recently said that he would be in power for the next 10 years. If that has to happen, his government should perform well in the next five years.

All said and done, Revanth Reddy is showing a win-win political maturity.