Keeping the Telangana Congress flock together

The biggest message of the Congress meeting in Telangana with Rahul Gandhi was for Revanth Reddy

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi recently met with the warring leaders of the Telangana Congress in New Delhi. Mr. Gandhi apparently conveyed that he was willing to sacrifice people in the interests of the Grand Old Party. The message was that the party is supreme and persons can benefit politically only if the party comes to power. Whether the target of his comments were the senior leaders of the party who are questioning the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief, A. Revanth Reddy, or the leadership itself is unclear.

Senior leaders, who have personal and political issues with the PCC chief, lobbied and finally succeeded in ensuring the meeting. Some of them feel that Mr. Revanth Reddy, an “outsider” like Navjot Singh Sidhu was in the Punjab Congress, cannot lead the party. As expected, the meeting turned out to be a forum for complaints. Some leaders, who rarely come out in the media against the PCC chief, reportedly questioned his style and sought remedies, while others such as T. Jayaprakash Reddy and V. Hanumantha Rao, who have been targeting Mr. Revanth Reddy publicly, remained surprisingly silent. This indicates that the group led by Mr. Revanth Reddy succeeded to a large extent in silencing the dissidents by holding meetings with them and assuring them that they would be elevated to national committees.

The meeting was a success on some counts and a failure on others. On the one hand, the cadres saw the top leaders on a single platform and Mr. Gandhi taking charge, which may have energised them and given them some hope. The main issue to be addressed was the lack of communication among the leaders. Mr. Gandhi’s promise to form a grievance committee to ensure cohesiveness was a positive outcome of the meeting.

However, there was little discussion on strengthening systems and structural changes, sources said. The meeting seemed to have missed the all-important strategy of creating a narrative to take on the ruling party and its strong leader, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao. None of the senior leaders spoke about the core issue of how the party should be prepared to face the challenge of elections and create counter-narratives to challenge the ruling party’s claims.

The biggest message of the meeting was for Mr. Revanth Reddy, and that is to follow precisely what Mr. Gandhi did. If Mr. Gandhi, busy with responsibilities across the country, could take out four hours to listen to the Telangana leaders, nothing should prevent Mr. Reddy from adopting a similar strategy to hear the leaders of the districts in Telangana.

Senior leaders expect him to spare a full day for each district, call leaders of different groups who are fighting and listen to their concerns. “Assure them, give them confidence and address the issues that can be settled immediately using party mechanisms. The job of a leader is to make things happen rather than doing everything himself,” a senior leader said. He added that the PCC chief has to create effective systems, structures and processes and ensure outcomes rather than playing all the roles himself.

The belief in the party is that a leader will only succeed if he is willing to make sacrifices. Even the strongest supporters of Mr. Revanth Reddy argue that he has to take everyone along with him. That the fist is stronger than individual fingers holds true for the Congress, a party which is still a force to reckon with in Telangana given its spread in each and every village.