Rahul Gandhi sets up key Congress committees in poll-bound Telangana

India वोट Kar | September 20, 2018

On Wednesday, Congress president Rahul Gandhi named A Revanth Reddy and Ponnam Prabhakar working presidents of the Telangana Congress and set up a series of committees for the coming Assembly election. The party said it would not announce a chief ministerial candidate in the state, where it will contest jointly with the TDP, the CPI and the Telangana Jana Samithi.

No chief ministerial face

R C Khuntia, the AICC in-charge of Telangana, said the Congress usually does not name its chief ministerial candidate before an Assembly election. State party chief Uttam Kumar Reddy would lead the campaign, he said, and the chief minister would be chosen after the vote.

The election was brought forward after Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao cut short the Assembly’s tenure by dissolving it; its term was to run until May 2019.

The new committees

Statements issued by the party and by AICC general secretary Ashok Gehlot listed the following panels:

Core committee: 15 members drawn from the top state leaders, to take key decisions before the election.
Coordination committee: 52 leaders, chaired by R C Khuntia, with N Uttam Kumar Reddy as convener.
Campaign committee: 17 members, chaired by MLA Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, with D K Aruna as co-chair and Sravan Dasoju as convener.
Pradesh election committee: 41 members, with heads of frontal organisations and departments as special invitees.
Manifesto committee: 35 members, chaired by Damodar C Rajanarasimha, with K Venkat Reddy as co-chair and Bomma Mahesh Kumar Goud as convener.
Strategy and planning committee: 20 members, chaired by V Hanumantha Rao, with Sridhar Babu, Sarvey Satyanarayana and Madhu Yakshi Goud as co-chairs and P Sudhakar Reddy as convener.

Background

In the previous election the TDP was allied with the BJP; it won 15 seats with close to 15 per cent of the vote.

What happened next

In the 2018 Telangana election the Telangana Rashtra Samithi won 88 seats and the Congress 19, and K. Chandrasekhar Rao remained Chief Minister. In the 2023 election the Congress won 64 seats and A. Revanth Reddy became Chief Minister.

Originally published on 20 September 2018. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.