Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy on Friday, 2 February, kickstarted the Congress' Parliamentary election campaign from Adilabad's Indervelli village.
Despite the headstart – and its surprising comeback in the Assembly elections held in December 2023 – a lot appears to be at stake for the party:
The Congress won 64 seats in the Assembly polls, pushing the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (led by K Chandrasekhar Rao) to second place with 39 seats. The government is, however, running on a thin majority and is not immune to instability.
There is a need – now more than ever – for the Congress to up its tally in Parliament, considering the steady rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) not only in the northern states but in Telangana as well, where it won eight Assembly seats.
The instability within the Opposition INDIA bloc after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's exit is posing a perception challenge to the Congress, even in Telangana.
The Parliamentary elections will also prove to be a litmus test for the BRS. With electoral contests across the country taking a bipolar route between the BJP and the Congress-led Opposition, a regional party like the BRS would need a major win to keep itself afloat, especially amid speculations that the Congress is 'engineering defections' in its fold.
So, who has the edge? Will the Congress be able to repeat its Assembly poll performance? Will the BRS make a comeback? And where does the BJP stand?