HYDERABAD: Poll-bound Telangana did not find a place in the newly constituted 39-member Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision-making body of the grand old party.
However, the only solace to Telangana came in the form of former deputy chief minister Damodar Raja Narasimha from the Dalit community and AICC secretary (organisation) and former MLA Ch Vamshichand Reddy being named permanent and special invitees respectively to the CWC .
The last time Telangana had representation in the CWC was 11 years ago when K Keshava Rao was in Congress, who later joined BRS.
AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday constituted a new CWC. The reshuffle also comes ahead of assembly polls in five states — Telangana, Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh — and the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
The CWC was reconstituted 10 months after Kharge became the president of the grand old party. It replaced the Steering Committee that was formed as a stop-gap arrangement. While there are 39 members in the CWC, it has 32 permanent invitees, including some in charges of the states and 13 special invitees.
From Telangana, where elections are scheduled to be held by year end, top leaders like N Uttam Kumar Reddy, MLA D Anasuya (Seethakka), MP and star campaigner Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, veterans K Jana Reddy, V Hanumanth Rao, Ponnala Lakshmaiah and Mallu Ravi, AICC secretary and Dalit leader S A Sampath Kumar among others, were aspiring for a berth in the top decision-making body of the party.
Though Telangana Congress president A Revanth Reddy, in a statement, congratulated both Damodar Rajanarasimha and Vamshichand Reddy for being appointed on CWC’s permanent and special invitees list, a majority of the party leaders in the state are surprised over Telangana being ignored at a time when the party is making all efforts to defeat the ruling BRS in the upcoming elections.
The reason behind the aspirations of Telangana Congress leaders to make it to the CWC was that the party leadership in Delhi would accommodate at least a few Congress loyalists, who call themselves “original Congress members” and had raised a banner of revolt against the appointment of new entrant into the party from TDP, Revanth Reddy, as the TPCC president.
They were confident that the party high command, particularly Kharge who is from neighbouring Karnataka, would have a better understanding of political equations of the organisational posts and would accommodate some seniors in CWC to balance the so called “injustice done to them” with the appointment of Revanth as PCC chief by ignoring the seniors.
Meanwhile, from AP, ex-APCC chief N Raghuveera Reddy got a place in the CWC.