TAKEN TOGETHER, the twists and turns in Revanth Reddy’s electoral career are an affront to probability theory.
Reddy scored his first big unlikely win in 2009, when Chandrababu Naidu called him at midnight to make him the TDP’s assembly polls candidate from Kodangal. Godspeed, said Naidu, after handing him the requisite ‘B-form’, a sort of party ticket that Reddy had to submit to election officials in the constituency. The problem: Reddy did not know where Kodangal was; it was the last day for filing nominations; only two weeks remained before polling; and the incumbent MLA was a veteran who had twice won the seat.
Still, Reddy managed a victory margin of 7,000 votes.
In 2014, the odds against him were greater. Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated, and Kodangal became part of Telangana. Reddy was up against the same rival, who had by then joined the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, which was expected to sweep the polls in the new state. Still, Reddy more than doubled his victory margin.
Because of his good work in Kodangal, 2018 was finally meant to be a cakewalk. Reddy had quit the moribund TDP and joined the reviving Congress; his two-time rival had opted out of the race; and the new rival was a rank outsider. Still, Reddy lost by around 10,000 votes.
In 2019, Reddy contested from Malkajgiri, whose 32 lakh electors made it India’s largest Lok Sabha constituency. All assembly segments in Malkajgiri were held by the TRS, whose main fight was with the BJP. Voters disillusioned with both the parties were the Congress’s only sliver of hope. Reddy won by around 10,000 votes.
This year, Reddy finally took no chances. He contested from Kodangal and, to be safe, also filed papers from Kamareddy, where the Congress has good presence. He expected to win both the seats, and told his partymen to “punish me if the Congress wins less than 80 seats in Telangana”. As it happened, he won Kodangal with a record margin, but came an embarrassing third in Kamareddy.
The Congress now has 16 seats less than what he predicted (and just four above the majority mark), and a handful of veterans who are quietly raging at Reddy’s appointment as chief minister. Considering the circumstances, this could well be the punishment that Reddy had asked for.