As the year 2023 comes to a close, Telangana witnessed winds of change in the governance with the Congress pulling down the nine-and-a-half years of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) from power in the November 30 assembly elections, marking the beginning of a new era in state politics.

It was a year of remarkable emergence of 54-year-old Anumula Revanth Reddy as the most successful leader of the Congress, after late Y S Rajasekhar Reddy. Braving stiff resistance from seniors in the party, he led the party from the front to victory in the elections, trouncing 69-year-old Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao, aka KCR.

Within hours of assuming power, Revanth Reddy has proved to be a chief minister with a difference. He got the iron barricades of Pragati Bhavan, the chief minister’s official bungalow-cum-camp office, which was out of bounds for the common people, uprooted and threw it open for them, renaming it as Jyotirao Phule Praja Bhavan. Thousands of people have been thronging Praja Bhavan every day since Revanth Reddy came to power.

His government quickly implemented two of the six guarantees the Congress party has promised – free bus travel for women and enhancement of free treatment for the poor in corporate hospitals from ₹5 lakh to ₹10 lakh.

As the year is coming to end, he launched “Praja Palana” (People’s Rule), taking the administration to the doorsteps of the common man, to identify the beneficiaries of various government schemes and redress their grievances.

The Revanth Reddy government also released white papers on the financial position of Telangana to explain to the people how the previous BRS government pushed the state into a debt trap with borrowings mounting up to ₹6.71 lakh crore.

As the new year 2024 begins, it will be a daunting task for the new chief minister to overcome the financial crisis, implement the six guarantees promised by the Congress and lead the party to victory in the Lok Sabha elections.

The Congress has won 64 out of 119 assembly seats in the recent assembly elections, just four seats more than the absolute majority mark. So, Revanth Reddy will also have to face the challenge of averting any kind of split in the party in the coming months, given the political manoeuvring skills of the BRS leadership.

A dream shattered for KCR

The year also shattered the dreams of KCR to make it big in the national politics and project himself as the only alternative to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In October 2022, he transformed his Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) into Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), claiming that it would herald a qualitative change in the country’s politics.

As his party bandwagon began calling him as “Desh Ki Neta,” the BRS chief began his national mission with a massive public rally at Khammam on January 18. He embarked on expanding his party’s footprints to neighbouring Maharashtra by establishing the party network in at least 15 districts, covering 27 of the total 48 Lok Sabha constituencies in Maharashtra, with an enrolment of nearly 1.5 million members.

Between February and August, KCR addressed at least six rallies — Sangli, Nanded, Kandhar-Loha Aurangabad, Nanded town again and Solapur. He also set up the BRS branches in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and even in Delhi, where he had established BRS central headquarters.

Simultaneously, KCR made every effort to run down the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was emerging as a major political threat to the BRS early this year, by dragging top BJP leaders like B L Santosh into the alleged attempt to poach four of the BRS MLAs.

Apart from boycotting all the meetings of the Prime Minister whenever he came to Telangana, KCR also adopted a confrontationist stand against Raj Bhavan, denying protocol facilities to governor Tamilisai Soundararajan.

She, too, created troubles for KCR by sitting over certain bills passed by the state legislature in the name of seeking clarifications for a long time and rejecting the recommendation of the BRS government nominating two of his party leaders as MLCs.

However, there was a perceptible change in the stand of KCR after the Modi government tightened its noose around his daughter Kalvakuntla Kavitha in connection with the Delhi liquor scam and the Enforcement Directorate began grilling her. The subsequent developments saw poaching case getting stuck up in the Supreme Court and the talk of Kavitha’s arrest subsiding, leading to the talk among the people that KCR had entered into some kind of compromise with the BJP leadership.

The rise of Congress and fall of BJP

The outcome of the assembly elections in Karnataka in May 2023 gave a new lease of life to the Congress in Telangana. Till then, the party was lying low and fraught with dissidence from seniors who were revolting against PCC president Revanth Reddy.

Some senior leaders like Marri Shashidhar Reddy, Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy and Yeleti Maheshwar Reddy had defected to the BJP, questioning the style of functioning of Revanth Reddy. Other seniors like Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, N Uttam Kumar Reddy, D Sridhar Babu, T Jayaprakash Reddy used to go to New Delhi to complain against Revanth Reddy.

However, the party high command reposed total faith in Revanth Reddy and gave him a free hand in the party affairs – whether it is selection of candidates, taking out of padayatras and making arrangements for the public rallies of top Congress leaders such as Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi.

The “Bharat Jodo Yatra” undertaken by Rahul Gandhi passing through Telangana in October 2022 evoked huge response from the people and generated a positive image for the party that continued to create positive vibes for the party in 2023 as well.

Realising that the Congress has fair chances of winning the assembly elections, the Congress Working Committee held its meeting in Hyderabad on September 16 and 17, culminating in a massive public meeting of Sonia Gandhi on the outskirts of Hyderabad, where she announced implementation of six guarantees for the people of Telangana, if the party is voted to power.

At the same time, the graph of the BJP had suddenly started falling following the change of guard in the state – firebrand MP Bandi Sanjay, who was firing all guns at the BRS government with his aggressive speeches, was replaced by relatively soft-spoken and mild-natured Union tourism minister G Kishan Reddy as the state BJP chief.

The party went into a virtual limbo with no major activities being taken up in any part of the state, demoralising the BJP leaders and cadre. There were also murmurs within the party as to whether the BJP central leadership had any secret understanding with the BRS, as was evident from lack of any action against KCR’s daughter Kavitha in Delhi liquor scam.

Several leaders from other parties like former MP Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy and former minister Jupalli Krishna Rao from the BRS, who were planning to join the BJP dropped their plans and joined the Congress. Similarly, senior BJP leaders like G Vivek, M Narasimhulu and even actress-turned-former MP Vijayashanti defected to the Congress, ahead of the assembly elections.

Though the BJP top leaders like Narendra Modi and Amit Shah made whirlwind tours during the elections, delivered aggressive speeches and made promises like appointing an OBC as the CM candidate and categorisation of SC reservations, it was too late for the BJP to recover.

Meanwhile, the Congress improved its position tremendously with the influx of leaders from the BJP and the BRS and very soon, it transformed into a positive wave for the party, that finally catapulted it to power in the November 30 elections.

The BJP, which was a front runner for power till May this year, ended up with a single digit (eight assembly seats), though it improved its vote share from 6.98% in 2018 to 13.90% in 2023. It is now expecting to make it big in the Lok Sabha elections scheduled in March/April 2024.

Controversies’ favourite child

Apart from rise of the Congress and fall of the BJP, two other major controversies also contributed to the debacle of the KCR government.

First one was the question paper leak case in connection with various recruitment tests which were conducted by the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC).

Though the BRS government ordered a probe by a special investigation team (SIT) of the police, it did not douse the raging fire.

The unemployed youths, who were already upset for the government for not filling up any job vacancies for the last nine years, were up in arms against the government over the question paper leaks. The issue went up to the high court, which ordered cancellation of all the tests.

Another major controversy that rocked the KCR government was the way cracks developed in one of the piers of Medigadda barrage, the biggest and first of all the major reservoirs of the mighty Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project constructed on Godavari river at a cost of over ₹1 lakh crore.

As the cracks posed a threat to the entire barrage, the government emptied the reservoir and the national dam safety authorities described the entire project as useless, causing a major embarrassment to the KCR government.

As the year is coming to a close, the Congress government has ordered a judicial inquiry into the whole project. It remains to be seen how the present CM Revanth Reddy will deal with the challenge and restore the project in the coming months.