Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, who was a blue eyed boy of the Congress high-command for a long time, helped him to be chosen as TPCC president and later as first Chief Minister of the Telangana state ignoring stiff opposition from the party seniors in the state.
However, after becoming Chief Minister his attitude and governance seems to be creating a gap with the party high command. For the last seven months, he was unable to get an appointment with Rahul Gandhi. He failed to take up cabinet expansion.
In this background, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Hyderabad on Tuesday given enough indications of the widening gap between the Congress high command and Chief Minister.
TPCC president Mahesh Kumar Goud had met AICC Chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi during his trip to New Delhi on October 26. Party sources said the TPCC president had discussed a few issues about the party affairs and also briefed them about the caste census.
It is strongly believed in the party that the TPCC president invited Rahul Gandhi to participate in the State-level consultation on caste census. Accordingly, Rahul Gandhi arrived in Hyderabad for a two-hour visit on Tuesday and attended the programme.
Prior to this, Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka had met AICC General Secretary KC Venugopal on October 25 and shared the progress achieved on the caste census programme. It may be recalled that the Chief Minister had been to New Delhi quite a few times in the recent past but coud also do not meet the Gandhi family members.
During his visit to New Delhi on August 16, the Chief Minister along with Industries Minister D Sridhar Babu had met the AICC chief. He personally invited Kharge to participate in the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s statue unveiling ceremony near the Secretariat on August 20. However, neither Kharge nor any of the Gandhi family members participated in the programme.
Similarly, after launching the crop loan waiver scheme on July 18, the Chief Minister while interacting with farmers through video conference had announced that a public meeting would be conducted in Warangal to celebrate the occasion. He also assured that Rahul Gandhi would be invited for the public meeting and accordingly he flew to New Delhi on July 22.
There was a strong buzz in the party here that the Chief Minister would invite Rahul Gandhi for the proposed public meeting at Warangal. Much to the disappointment of the cadre, the public meeting was not organized making things obvious about Rahul Gandhi’s willingness.