Congress has registered a thumping victory in the Jubilee Hills By-election. It won a constituency long seen as a BRS stronghold and one it never won after the Bifurcation.
The 25,000 majority makes the victory even more striking.
The result has boosted Revanth Reddy's image within the Congress Party. Many inside and outside the party wanted him to fail so the Chief Minister could be changed. This win has pushed that talk aside for now.
But this outcome should not blind Revanth Reddy to reality. A by-election does not guarantee anything about 2028. Any ruling party enjoys natural advantages in a by-election, no matter the political climate.
Between 2014 and 2023, seven by-elections happened in Telangana, and Congress did not win even one. Yet the same party went on to win the 2023 Assembly election. Politics always keeps the door open for surprises.
In 2012, TDP won the Nandyal By-election in a similar way. Nandyal was a YSR Congress stronghold, yet TDP took it with a majority of 27,465 votes. Before that, TDP last won Nandyal in 1999.
In the next election, TDP lost the same seat by 34,560 votes and dropped to just 23 seats overall. The Nandyal By-election meant nothing in the long run. The same logic applies to Jubilee Hills. For Revanth Reddy, it offers only temporary satisfaction.
His Guru Chandrababu Naidu stands as an example of why by-election results must not be taken too seriously. They often mislead parties into wrong assumptions.
Congress supporters are already writing political obituaries for BRS. The Car Party is down but not out. Underestimating any opponent is dangerous in politics. They must remember how Congress was irrelevant between 2014 and 2023 and still returned to power in 2023.