Revanth Reddy to be CM of Telangana; oath tomorrow

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, December 5

Putting an end to the suspense building over the post of Telangana Chief Minister, the Congress today named A Revanth Reddy, chief of the party’s Telangana unit, for the coveted post two days after the party handed out a comprehensive defeat to the state’s ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi. Reddy (54) will take oath on Thursday.

Briefing the media at the AICC headquarters here, KC Venugopal, Congress general secretary (organisation), said the newly elected Congress MLAs of Telangana met in Hyderabad last evening and unanimously decided to entrust the responsibility of naming the leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) to party president Mallikarjun Kharge. AICC observers DK Shivakumar, Deepa Das Munshi, Ajoy Kumar, K Muraleedharan and KJ George, and state in-charge Manikrao Thakare were present at the CLP meeting in Hyderabad, Venugopal said. This afternoon, Shivakumar and Thakare met the Congress president at his residence in Delhi with their report on the CLP meeting. Former party president Rahul Gandhi and Venugopal were among senior leaders who took part in the meeting.

“Shivakumar and Thakare gave a detailed report on their observation about the CLP meeting. After considering the report and following discussion with the senior leadership, the Congress president decided to go with Revanth Reddy…,” Venugopal said.

Revanth Reddy, his main challenger for the CM’s post Uttam Kumar Reddy, Shivakumar and Thakare were present at the press conference. Revanth cut his teeth in politics with the ABVP, the student wing of the BJP. In 2007, he was elected a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) of the undivided Andhra Pradesh as an Independent candidate. Reddy later joined the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and was elected to the Andhra Pradesh Assembly from the Kodangal constituency in 2009.

Reddy joined the Congress in 2017 and was appointed as the TPCC chief in 2021. He won the 2019 Lok Sabha seat in 2019.