Congress President Sonia Gandhi, on Sunday, September 12, constituted the political affairs committee of the party's Telangana unit. Congress leader Manickam Tagore has been appointed as the chairman of the party’s political affairs committee in Telangana. A Lok Sabha MP from Tamil Nadu’s Virudhunagar constituency, Tagore is also the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of Telangana. The development came amid the Congress party's efforts to re-posture itself as the strongest alternative to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).
All state unit Congress presidents, working presidents, all chairpersons of committees approved by the All India Congress Committee (AICC), all AICC secretaries from Telangana and all AICC secretaries In-charge of Telangana have also been included as members of the political affairs committee. Senior leader and former Minister Mohd Sabbir Ali will be the convener of the committee.
Other members of the committee include A Revanth Reddy, who is also the Telangana Congress president; senior leaders Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, V Hanumantha Rao, Ponnala Laxmaiah, K Jana Reddy and N Uttam Kumar Reddy. T Jeevan Reddy, Renuka Choudhary, P Balram Naik, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, D Sridhar Babu, Poddem Veeraiah, Anasuya (Seethakka) and Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy will also be members of the panel.
The decision to include senior faces in the committee seems to be a move to pacify the leaders who opposed the recent appointment of Revanth Reddy as the new president of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC). Revanth Reddy was appointed as TPCC chief in June 2021, almost four years after switching from the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). Revanth lost the Kodangal constituency in the 2018 Assembly elections, but later won as the MP from the Malkajgiri Parliament constituency in the 2019 general elections.
The decision of Revanth's appointment as the TPCC President was opposed by a section of senior leaders within the Congress, who claimed that the party had ignored senior loyalists. Ever since Revanth's appointment, the party has been organising widespread campaigns and public meetings against ruling TRS across the state.
As part of the larger outreach campaigns, Congress is set to hold Dalit-Girijan Dandora on September 17 in the Gajwel constituency, which is being represented by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR).
(With input from PTI)