It fought outside with the people for a separate Telangana, it fought with its own party and it also fought within to surrender the advantage to K. Chandrashekhar Rao as the Union government announced the formation of a separate State.
This is the irony of the century-old Congress party that lost out to the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) in the race to power in 2014 despite delivering the 60-year-old dream of Telangana. And a decade later, it is still not completely confident of grabbing its chances now. The nine-year political journey has been bumpy with the defection of its majority MLAs into the ruling party in two successive terms. Yet, it is still the principal opposition and a force to reckon with despite all the efforts to wipe it out from the State political map.
The debate on why the Congress lost in 2014 has different interpretations ranging from a compulsion to earning political mileage while delivering the new State. It was accused of bowing to the pressures of the political parties than the sincere intent in keeping its promise of bifurcating the State. When the dream became a reality, people believed that it wanted political mileage more than siding with the cause.
