Telangana election: Congress releases first list; Revanth Reddy to contest from Kodangal seat

The Telangana Congress on Sunday released its first list of 55 candidates for the poll-bound state, fielding state Congress president Revanth Reddy from the Kodangal seat.

The party's screening committee chairman K Muraleedharan earlier said that the first list of 58 out of 119 candidates would be released on Sunday.

The Congress list of candidates for Telangana is dominated by the land-owning, influential Reddy community that dominates business and politics in the state having a stamp of state party president Revanth Reddy, who joined the party in 2017.

The Reddys in Telangana account for nearly 6% of the total four crore population and the decision to accord a higher number of seats is part of a decades-long trend that has helped the Congress consolidate power while handing them big majorities in election years.

In the list released in late August, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, run by chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, from the Velama community, has also acknowledged the ‘might of Reddys’ and has given 40 tickets to them.

After Reddy’s, party leaders told HT that the Other Backward Castes would be the second biggest group to get about 20 tickets. About 10 seats have been reserved for the minorities in the old city with the women likely to get about 7-8 tickets, the same number given out by the ruling BRS as well. The Velamas community has been earmarked about 4-5 tickets and a handful to the Kammas, who could not be ignored being the arch rivals of the Reddys, may get tickets.

The Congress is upbeat about winning Telangana in the December election even though it won just 19 seats in 2018 and 21 seats in 2014 - the year the Telangana state was formed. The BRS, then TRS, got 88 seats in 2018 and 63 in 2014.

(With inputs from Deepika Amirapu in Hyderabad)