New Delhi: The Congress is expecting a turnaround in Telangana and Karnataka as the two Chief Ministers have briefed the party high command of a good show in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Ahead of the results on June 4, Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy met former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi while his Karnataka counterpart Siddaramaiah met All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of state Randeep Surjewala on May 28.
The Congress came to power in both Telangana and Karnataka in 2023 which boosted the expectations of the central leadership that the two states will contribute richly to the party's overall tally from south India. Before the national polls, both the Chief Ministers had assured the high command of a decent haul of Lok Sabha seats and had come to Delhi on May 28 to brief the leadership about the party's prospects in their respective states.
The five southern states and one Union Territory (UT) collectively send 130 members to the Lok Sabha. Out of these, Kerala with 20 seats continues to be a stronghold of the party while Tamil Nadu with 39 seats and UT Puducherry with one seat offers hope to the DMK-Congress alliance which is in power there.
In both Telangana with 17 seats and Karnataka with 28 seats, the Congress fought the BJP to gain an upper hand while Andhra Pradesh with 25 seats remained the only difficult terrain for the party. The fight in Karnataka was tougher as the BJP had swept the state in 2019 winning 25 seats while it won only three seats in Telangana.
Before the polls, Siddaramaiah had claimed the Congress will win 20 plus seats in Karnataka while Revanth Reddy had claimed 14 plus seats in Telangana. “The Congress and its allies are going to get very good results from south India. In Kerala, the United Democratic Front (UDF) has done very well. In Telangana, we will be the major player," AICC in-charge of Telangana P Vishnunadh told ETV Bharat.
“The Chief Minister of Telangana continues to be popular among the people and has implemented all the key poll promises. The party also ran an aggressive campaign. All this has impacted the national elections majorly in the state," he said.
According to party insiders, the deployment of central observers and state ministers to each of the 17 parliamentary seats in Telangana helped a lot in the monitoring of the elections which saw the BRS becoming weaker.
AICC in-charge of Karnataka Abishek Dutt shared similar sentiments and said the southern state would surprise everyone on the results day. "This time around the Congress will be the winner. We are going to get 15 plus seats in the state. The reason is the implementation of our poll promises and the people getting fed up with the BJP's divisive politics,” Dutt told ETV Bharat.
During his meeting with Sonia Gandhi, Revanth Reddy also invited the former party chief to attend the Telangana formation day ceremony on June 2. Sonia had played a major role in the creation of the state out of Andhra Pradesh in 2013, when the UPA was in power at the Centre.
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