Kesava Rao’s switch from the Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi (BRS), led by K Chandrashekar Rao, to the Congress is being seen as a strategic move aimed at strengthening the grand old party’s position in the Rajya Sabha, critical for retaining the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) post currently held by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.

After the resignations of party leaders KC Venugopal and Deepender Singh Hooda following their wins in the recent Lok Sabha elections, Congress’ strength in the Rajya Sabha has dwindled to 26, just above the 25-member threshold required for the LoP position.

After returning to Congress, Kesava Rao resigned from the Rajya Sabha as a BRS member, creating a vacancy from Telangana. This vacancy is set to be filled by Congress given its strong representation in the state assembly. Congress is also actively seeking more defections from other parties in Telangana and Karnataka to bolster its numbers.

After facing setbacks in recent state elections and since 2014, Congress’ representation in the Rajya Sabha has dramatically declined. The party barely retained the LoP post after the last round of elections. Leading up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Congress held 28 seats in the Rajya Sabha, just meeting the 10% seat requirement (25 seats) necessary to claim the LoP position.

With Congress narrowly maintaining its required numbers, the recent parliamentary elections saw the victory and subsequent resignations of Rajya Sabha members KC Venugopal and Deepender Hooda, reducing Congress’s tally to 26 seats and leaving only a slim margin. The bypolls for their vacated seats in Rajasthan and Haryana are expected to favour the BJP, which governs both these states.

While Rao is expected to rejoin the Rajya Sabha from Telangana as a Congress member for the remaining two-year term, his recent appointment as an advisor to the state government in Hyderabad has sparked speculation about his potential replacement by Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

Singhvi, a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) and a senior spokesperson for the AICC in the Rajya Sabha, faced a setback earlier this year when he lost the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Himachal Pradesh to the BJP’s Harsh Mahajan. The contest ended in a tie with both Congress and BJP candidates securing 34 votes each, indicating dissent within the Congress ranks as at least six Congress MLAs reportedly voted against the party line.

Rao, who served as Andhra Pradesh Congress president, had defected to the BRS, then TRS, in 2013 after holding key positions within the Congress, including CWC in charge of the state.