Congress Leaves Telangana CM Call to High Command

Hyderabad: The Congress, which scored a resounding victory in the Assembly elections, on Monday left it to the high command to pick a leader who would become Chief Minister.

The 64 MLAs-elect passed a one-line resolution authorising AICC chief Mallikarjun Kharge to choose the leader at a meeting held at a hotel in Gachibowli on Monday, and the focus has now shifted to Delhi.

Kharge is expected to hold a meeting with the party’s top echelon, comprising Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra and K.C. Venugopal, general secretary (organisation), among others, on Tuesday to take the call.

The resolution was proposed by TPCC chief A. Revanth Reddy and was seconded by senior leaders N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, Damodar Rajanarsimha, Seethakka, Tummala Nageswara Rao, Ponnam Prabhakar, D. Sreedhar Babu, Premsagar Rao, Balu Naik and Konda Surekha.

The party high command deputed five AICC observers to Telangana, led by Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, on Sunday to hold deliberations with MLAs to arrive at a consensus on the CM candidate.

After passing the resolution unanimously on Monday, Shivakumar and other AICC observers held one-on-one interactions with MLAs-elect to seek their preferred choice of leader. The AICC observers are expected to submit a report in this regard to the party's high command, which will influence the decision.

Although rumours surfaced that there were arguments at the CLP meeting, with some senior leaders strongly opposing the selection of Revanth Reddy as Chief Minister, party sources dismissed the same, saying that the meeting went off peacefully and that the majority of the MLAs wanted the TPCC chief to be made their leader.

Before the CLP meeting on Monday, Shivakumar had a separate meeting with senior leaders Uttam Kumar Reddy, Bhatti and Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy at another hotel in Jubilee Hills. Confirmed details about the meeting were not available.