Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and a large contingent of Congress leaders have spent three days in Delhi on a political protest, while drought is tearing through Telangana’s farms and villages.

The report, datelined Hyderabad on November 1, describes a state where irrigation water has dried up, unannounced power cuts are hitting farmers, and harvests that were ready to be sold are shriveling in the fields. Residents are also struggling to get drinking water. Farmers are waiting for drought relief, and many are asking the same question: who is speaking for them?

Instead of pushing the Centre for aid from the capital, the party’s top leadership went to Delhi for a protest demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Party and government figures, including ministers, MPs, MLAs, MLCs, corporation chairpersons and key party leaders, travelled to the national capital. Hundreds of buses, cars and other vehicles carried party workers from across the state.

The cost question

The expense is what has drawn the sharpest anger. According to the report, the trip involved buses, cars, flight tickets, rail tickets, and accommodation and food for workers. The total is estimated at up to Rs 50 crore. That figure has not been officially confirmed, but it is the number political observers are now quoting while the state’s farmers wait for relief.

The protest was first planned for Hyderabad. It was later moved to Delhi, and critics say that switch wasted crores of rupees that could have been spent on the crisis at home. The question being asked in the state is simple: why did the protest need to happen in Delhi at all?

Numbers that did not add up

For days, Congress leaders in Hyderabad had promised a massive turnout. The party reportedly set a target of 15,000 people, to be moved by 300 special buses. It also announced that more than 200 private buses were being arranged, and that hundreds of vehicles would travel to Delhi. Party leaders had spent around 15 days building up the ‘Chalo Delhi’ programme against what they call vote theft.

On the ground, the numbers told a different story. The report says the number of party workers who actually reached Delhi may have been far below the target, and some party insiders privately estimated that the total number of attendees was closer to a thousand. It also says that two buses were allotted per district, that many workers showed little enthusiasm for the bus journey, and that some buses did not reach Delhi on Sunday morning. Some travellers reportedly stopped at pilgrimage sites on the way and arrived only by evening.

Leaders, meanwhile, flew. Ministers, MPs, MLAs and other senior figures travelled by air, while workers were put on buses. Some MLAs set out by car in a convoy from Hyderabad, and the report says it is not clear whether all of them reached Delhi.

On Sunday, the INDIA bloc held a large rally at Ramlila Maidan under the slogan ‘Vote Bachao, Desh Bachao’. Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, the state Congress president and some ministers joined Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge at the event. The report says the state contingent was smaller than the one promised.

What it means for Telangana

The drought is not a rumour or a forecast. The state government itself has acknowledged that conditions are severe. Rainfall has been below normal, irrigation supply is short, and reservoir storage has fallen. Agriculture is under strain, and 365 mandals have been declared drought-affected.

The government estimates that crops have been lost across 25 lakh acres, with total losses of about Rs 20,000 crore. The report says the government has not announced a single rupee of compensation. Farmers still do not know how much they will receive, or when. The state has passed an assembly resolution asking the Centre for a special Rs 20,000 crore package and other assistance, but there is no clarity on when that money might arrive or how much will come. Until it does, the state’s responsibility for farmers remains unclear.

That is why the Delhi trip has landed so hard. The report argues that a government facing a crisis of this size should be focused on pressing the Centre for drought aid, and that it instead chose a party protest. Critics say the state has shifted the burden onto New Delhi while its own farmers wait.

The report puts the central contrast in one line, and it is hard to miss.

Abandoning the state’s problems, they set up camp in the national capital for political dharnas.

Political analysts have joined the criticism, questioning why a government that is struggling to deliver relief would spend this kind of money on a protest in another state. The report also raises concerns about whether the leaders who went to Delhi understood what their own party workers were being asked to do, and whether anyone at the top answered for the gap between the promises and the turnout.

For the farmers in the districts, none of this changes the basic situation. Their crops are dying, water is scarce, power is unpredictable, and the compensation they were promised has not arrived. The report suggests that many of them are asking why their government was in Delhi while their fields were drying up at home.