There were two key aspects to Revanth Reddy’s and Congress’s campaign for the 2023 Assembly elections in Telangana last year. One was of course, the abundance of promises. Second was the time frame for implementing those promises.

Revanth Reddy went overboard in promising that Congress would implement six guarantees within 100 days of coming to power. In a neatly designed graphic, everyone starting from the INC President Mallikarjun Kharge to the social media volunteer posted the 6 guarantees.

It is a very well-designed infographic that gives you the first impression that there are actually only 6 guarantees in the promise. A second look, and you will realise how Congress scammed you even with something as simple as a number! A closer perusal of the document shows that the actual guarantees being promised are 13 in number, and not 6! Almost every “Guarantee” has sub-guarantees included in them.

In the first 100 days, the Congress party only fulfilled 4 out of these 13 guarantees. Infact, only 5 of these guarantees are fulfilled after a full year in power! Back then. the Congress party and its compliant media wanted to highlight the deception as an actual achievement, but the people of Telangana used the Lok Sabha elections as a great chance to give Revanth Reddy a message. Congress party won only 8 out of the 17 seats here, with BJP winning 8 more and MIM winning 1. This was the first setback Revanth Reddy received within just 5 months of coming to power.

The setback was also because of the failure to keep up the promise of waiving farmer loans up to 2 lakhs, in 100 days. Later in 2024, during the campaign for the assembly elections of four states, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, highlighted the non-fulfilment of promises by Congress governments in Himachal, Karnataka and Telangana. Revanth Reddy took it to heart and wrote a detailed letter to the Prime Minister in October, listing out how his government waived loans of nearly 22 lakh farmers. The Congress party released an infographic claiming that the Telangana government waived the loans of 40 lakh farmers (and not just 22 lakh farmers!).

It is really phenomenal how the Congress party manages to create scams out of pretty much everything. This confused messaging went on to prove the Prime Minister right!

The failed promises are the not the only thing that kept Revanth Reddy in the limelight. He instituted a new department and notoriously named it HYDRAA (like the monster from Greek Mythology!). HYDRAA’s remit was to demolish constructions that came up on lake beds. Compliant media even wrote headlines such as “Hail HYDRA”. Until news came out the house of CM’s own brother occupied land on a lake bed.

And that he has been given enough time to file a case in HC, while other hapless citizens who built their houses after all due permissions from government agencies are having to witness their houses demolished. The poignant videos of hapless citizens wailing while CM’s family was availing services of lawyers to protect their houses, sent out a very strong message to the society of Telangana.  

Well then, is it all doom and gloom after the Congress came to power? Revanth Reddy was successful in filling up thousands of positions in the state government, something that the previous government could not do. This has created goodwill for him in those families who have waited long enough to secure these jobs. While now we will never know if the loans of 22 lakh farmers or 40 lakh farmers were waived, it remains a fact that loans up to 2 lakh rupees were waived off for some farmers – which in itself creates goodwill for him amongst this section.  He is envisioning a new city – the Fourth City – in the Hyderabad limits. He has already announced the setting up of 2 universities – Skill University and Sports University.

However, controversy seems to follow him mainly because of the hypocrisy of the Congress party as a whole. Revanth Reddy has entered into an MoU with Adani. In addition, Revanth also accepted a donation of 100 crores from Adani for the Skill University (which he later announced that the government won’t be taking!). In fact, these pictures of multiple meetings with Adani became very popular and were used to question Rahul Gandhi’s hypocrisy.

Another pet project that Revanth Reddy has been envisioning is the development of the Musi riverfront. The vision slowly turned into an obsession because the opposition was getting successful in linking the clean-up of Musi to the dreaded HYDRAA project. Revanth Reddy went on an overdrive claiming that he would spend a whopping 1 lakh 50 thousand crore for the development of Musi – he went to London to study their riverfront projects; he sent a delegation of ministers, officers and journalists (Yes, journalists) to study the riverfront projects in Seoul! And he ended up challenging Prime Minister Modi to fund this 1 lakh 50 thousand crore dream!

Revanth Reddy has also commissioned Rahul Gandhi’s pet project – the caste survey! It is still a work in progress so we will have to wait what he will do with that data. The first one year of Revanth Reddy’s government was marred by more controversies than achievements. His speeches on various occasions are also filled with vile language towards the opposition leaders. He has four more years to create more work and less controversies. Time will tell, if he will improve!