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Revanth takes oath as Telangana CM
With 65 seats in the 119-member assembly, the Congress dislodged the two-term Bharat Rashtra Samithi government in the recently concluded assembly elections
Anumala Revanth Reddy, who led the Congress to its first assembly elections victory in Telangana, took oath on Thursday as the second chief minister of India’s youngest state along with one deputy and 10 other ministers.
At a ceremony at the packed Lal Bahadur stadium in Hyderabad in the presence of a galaxy of party leaders and thousands of followers, Reddy, 54, became the first Congress chief minister of Telangana, nearly a decade after it was carved out of Andhra Pradesh.
With 65 seats in the 119-member assembly, the Congress dislodged the two-term Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government headed by K Chandrashekar Rao in the recently concluded assembly elections.
“We have ended the misrule of BRS and will work for the ideals for which the Telangana statehood movement was started,” Revanth said in an emotional speech after taking the oath.
Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan administered the oath of office and secrecy to Revanth Reddy and 11 members of his cabinetm including the deputy chief minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, the Dalit face of the party.
Top Congress leaders including Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and others were present at the event, which was thronged by thousands of party workers and ordinary people. Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Reddy on taking oath as the Telangana CM. “...I assure all possible support to further the progress of the state and the welfare of its citizens,” Modi posted on X. Reddy replied to the PM’s post, saying: “Thank you Narendra Modi ji and looking forward for cooperation for the development of Telangana state.”
Other than the CM, 11 members took the oath of office. They are: Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka (deputy CM), N Uttam Kumar Reddy, C Damodar Rajanarasimha, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, Duddilla Sridhar Babu, Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy, Ponnam Prabhakar, Konda Surekha, Dasari Anasuya (popularly known as Seethakka), Tummala Nageswara Rao and Jupally Krishna Rao.
Given the strength of the assembly, the cabinet can accommodate 18 members. “The cabinet expansion will be done in due course to induct six more members. It is likely to happen after the election of the new speaker of the assembly,” a senior Congress functionary involved in the developments said
Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah, his deputy DK Shivakumar, and Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu also attended the ceremony. Later, Reddy held a victory lap inside the stadium in an open vehicle, with Sonia Gandhi standing by his side, waving to the cheering crowd.
In his address after taking oath, Reddy said the iron barricades around Pragati Bhavan, the CM’s camp office in Hyderabad, would be dismantled to make it ‘accessible to the general public”.
“At 10 am tomorrow, I will hold a praja darbar (people’s court) at the camp office where anybody can come and express their grievances. We will usher in a true democratic Telangana unlike the feudal Telangana of the past. We are not rulers of people but their servants,” he said to loud cheers.
Even as the swearing-in ceremony was on, several bulldozers, tractors and construction workers were seen outside Pragati Bhavan in Begumpet, a few kilometres away, uprooting iron rods and barricades.
Reddy also announced the renaming of Pragati Bhavan to Jyotirao Phule Praja Bhavan.
Alleging that the previous BRS regime made a mockery of democracy, the new CM said his government would implement Indiramma Rajyam ( a welfare state based on the ideas of Indira Gandhi) with liberty, social justice and development as its main planks.
He also assured that his government would ensure justice to the families of those who sacrificed their life for Telangana’s statehood, as well as the students and unemployed youth.
Soon after taking oath, he signed two files, one pertaining to the implementation of six poll guarantees of the Congress -- this included free travel for women in state-owned buses, pension for widows and single women, financial aid, free power and loan waiver for farmers -- and another providing a job to a physically challenged woman -- a promise he made to her on the campaign trail.
All contenders for the CM’s post—Uttam Kumar Reddy, Bhatti Vikramarka, K Venkat Reddy, Damodar Raja Narasimha and Sridhar Babu—were accommodated in the cabinet.
Vikramarka became the first Dalit deputy CM of Telangana. He was the Congress legislative party leader in the outgoing assembly; he undertook an extensive padayatra, covering 1,400 km across 36 constituencies, and is credited with laying the ground for the Congress’s resurgence in the state.
Anasuya, who belongs to the scheduled tribe community, started her political career in the Naxalite movement, which she later quit. In 2009, she contested for the first time from Mulugu in Warangal district as a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidate and won. She lost to the BRS candidate in the 2014 elections. Three years later, she joined the Congress and won the seat in 2018 and 2023.
