Hyderabad: On Thursday, the last day for filing nominations, Congress nominated senior leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, and Vem Narender Reddy, adviser to Revanth Reddy’s government, to the Rajya Sabha from Telangana.
The Election Commission of India has notified that elections for the two Rajya Sabha seats, vacated after Abhishek Manu Singhvi and K.R. Suresh Reddy ended their term on 9 April, will be held in Telangana on 16 March.
While there was speculation that K. Chandrashekar Rao’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) might field candidates to force a contest, none of the BRS’s representatives had filed nominations before the returning officer in the Telangana assembly at the time of filing this report. This paves the way for the two Congress candidates to be elected unopposed.
Singhvi’s renomination from Telangana would lead to the leader’s fifth term as a parliamentarian in the Upper House. On the other hand, it would be the first RS term for Vem Narender Reddy, Revanth Reddy’s long-time friend and political associate, from his days in the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). While Singhvi’s claim to the post was a matter of course, nearly 15 leaders from the party had evinced an interest in the other seat, according to sources in the Congress.
Vem Narender Reddy has trumped even Telangana All-India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge Meenakshi Natarajan and emerged as the Rajya Sabha nominee, they said. “Revanth Reddy convinced the Gandhis and the Congress top brass that of the two seats, one would be filled by a candidate of his choice,” a former MLA and senior party functionary told The Print on the condition of anonymity.
The two Reddys
The association of the CM and his current adviser goes back more than 30 years, to when the two were political apprentices under TDP supremo and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.
Revanth Reddy represented the Kodangal seat for the first time as an MLA in 2009. Narender Reddy had been elected from the Mahbubabad seat earlier in 2004.
Over the years, the two tutored each other on the ways of power, and Revanth Reddy rose to become a TDP working president in Telangana in 2014, after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. Both remained in the TDP until a political storm knocked them over in 2015.
In the 2015 Telangana “cash-for-vote” case, the state Anti-Corruption Bureau conducted a sting operation and caught Revanth Reddy, then a TDP MLA, allegedly handing over Rs 50 lakh to nominated MLA Elvis Stephenson. The agency said the payment was part of a larger Rs five-crore deal to secure Stephenson’s vote in the Telangana legislative council polls in favour of then TDP-BJP candidate Vem Narender Reddy.
Revanth Reddy was arrested during the operation and spent several weeks in judicial custody before being granted bail. Investigators also started probing Vem Narender Reddy’s alleged role in the bribery operation.
The case escalated politically after TV channels aired an audio recording of an alleged phone conversation in which Andhra CM Naidu purportedly told Stephenson that “all promises would be honoured”. The recording triggered allegations from KCR’s Telangana government at the time that Naidu was involved, a claim he denied while questioning the audio’s authenticity. Meanwhile, the two Reddys were expelled from the TDP, as the party attempted to distance itself from the case.
The case remains under litigation. Charges against one of the accused were later quashed by the Supreme Court for lack of evidence, while Revanth Reddy has challenged the FIR. His legal team has argued that the ACB’s trap was illegal and that the corruption law in force at the time did not apply to alleged bribe givers.
Congress stint
Two years later, in 2017, when Revanth Reddy joined the Congress, his aide Narender Reddy followed. Over time, their growing influence over the party became visible to all. When Revanth Reddy became the president of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee and steered the party into the 2023 assembly elections, Vem Narender Reddy, a planning committee member, was made the vice-president, putting him in charge of the party’s political affairs and propaganda.
However, their proximity and influence during multiple appointments to key positions reportedly threatened many old-time Congress leaders, and Vem Narender Reddy’s bid for an MLA ticket was thwarted, senior Congress leaders told ThePrint. Despite that, Narender Reddy worked behind the scenes, raising money for the party, brokering peace among different caste factions within the Congress and acting as Revanth Reddy’s point person for Congress leaders from other states discussing party matters.
“Revanth Reddy’s rise as the Chief Minister has only brought them closer. They are like Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy and his lieutenant K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao. Despite all the internal objections, Revanth knew he could create a respectable space for Narender Reddy when he became the CM,” the Congress working president, who has worked in party positions under three former Congress CMs, told ThePrint.
Different personalities
Within a month of taking charge as Telangana’s CM in December 2023, Narender Reddy was inducted as one of the three advisers to the CM and given a cabinet rank. He was seen sitting to the CM’s immediate right in every cabinet meeting, with the chief secretary relegated to the seat next to his.
“He is the unseen CM. People from every walk of life queue up outside his house from 7.30 am seeking his intervention,” a former Congress MLA shared. With Revanth Reddy heavily relying on his opinion, many party workers argue that Narender Reddy has the final word.
But those who know Vem Narender Reddy speak of how different the two friends are in their personalities.
Revanth Reddy’s high-decibel speeches and aggression stand in stark contrast to Narender Reddy’s almost Zen-like composure. With no allegations of personal corruption and never wanting to outsize his friend, his nomination as a Rajya Sabha member is widely reckoned to be the CM’s show of strength in his party, both in Telangana and Delhi.
After his Rajya Sabha nomination, Vem Narender Reddy spoke at the Gandhi Bhavan in Hyderabad. Thanking past Congress presidents, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and the Congress’s senior leaders, he said, “I am grateful to the chief minister for nominating me. I will raise important issues pertaining to Telangana and actively work to secure the necessary funds for various development projects.”
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)