SONIA GANDHI, THE FOUNDER OF TELANGANA?

It was exactly 15 years ago on December 9th (today), which happens to be Sonia Gandhi's birthday, when an official announcement was made, 20 minutes before midnight, to announce the creation of a separate State of Telangana from the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh.

- PANKAJ VOHRA

This was a decision which baffled many since at that point of time, there was no fresh demand for Telangana, and yet, senior leader P. Chidambaram made this declaration, considered a major political folly and which contributed to the loss of the Congress party in the 2014 Parliamentary polls.

The credit for the formation of the State which created a lot of bad blood amongst party supporters, was given fully to the then Congress president, and this claim was reiterated by Rahul Gandhi during the campaign for the Assembly polls last year.

Usually, political decisions are taken to help a political party gain a stranglehold over a region, but in this case, the reverse happened.

For more than a decade, the Congress became a non-entity in a place which it ruled even during its worst phases in history.

Both people of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana reacted to the development differently.

Those in Andhra Pradesh considered it as an act of betrayal and those in the newly formed State decided to back K.Chandrasekhar Rao, the leader of the Bharatiya Rashtriya Samiti, who became the first Chief Minister and remained in office for ten years.

And if the Congress is in power in Telangana today, it is solely because of the efforts of the present CM, Revanth Reddy, who as the PCC boss, turned things around, and upset all calculations by overwhelming Rao, in a significant electoral battle.