Morning Pulse: Telangana Congress marches in Delhi as the El Niño plan waits at home

Since last night, Telangana's ruling party has shifted most of its attention to Delhi. Close to 60 Congress public representatives flew to the capital by special flight on Sunday for today's INDIA bloc march, Siasat and Deccan Chronicle reported. Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and PCC president B Mahesh Kumar Goud led the group. That closes one of last evening's watch items: turnout from Telangana will be large. Meanwhile, the state's El Niño response is waiting its turn.

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy did not travel with them. He spent Sunday in Goa, standing in for Rahul Gandhi at the Congress's Goy Rakhonn Yatra, and was due to join the Telangana team in Delhi afterwards, Deccan Chronicle reported. In Goa he described the contest there as Ram against Ravan, with the Congress as Ram, and told voters that backing smaller parties would help the BJP, according to IANS and Telangana Today. He also accused the Centre of weakening the Election Commission. The Goa elections are due in 2027.

The Delhi plan changed overnight. Opposition leaders had wanted to meet the Chief Justice of India today. Citing sources, IANS and ETV Bharat reported that CJI Surya Kant declined the request. He reportedly said the court cannot meet a party delegation in this way and that the leaders should file a petition, as the issues are already before the court. The bloc still plans to march to the Supreme Court with a memorandum. Its demands include the resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar, a halt to SIR and the restoration of voters it says were wrongly deleted. Those deletion figures are the bloc's allegation and have not been independently verified.

Back home, the El Niño cabinet meeting that had been set for today has still not been rescheduled. Deccan Chronicle said a new date would be announced soon. Ministers are already giving farmers the message themselves. In Khammam district on Sunday, minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy asked farmers not to sow a yasangi (rabi) crop, Andhra Jyothy and Sakshi reported. He said little rain was expected and that water would go first to crops already in the ground. He also asked people to save water and power. We found no reports of a formal written advisory or a compensation package.

The opposition is already working the drought issue. At Siddipet's tenth district formation day meeting on Sunday night, BRS leader T Harish Rao called the water shortage an "artificial drought", Deccan Chronicle reported. He argued that the government had not run lift pumps to draw available Krishna and Godavari water, and that development works started under the BRS had stalled. He also asked the Chief Minister to finish the crop loan waiver. The government has not publicly responded to these claims.

The courts may matter more this week than the rallies. The Radial Road-2 tender dispute was due to come up again in the Telangana High Court today. Sushee Infra and Mining, which PTI reported is linked to Congress MLA Rajagopal Reddy, has challenged its disqualification from the Rs 3,296 crore project over an experience certificate that lacked a countersignature. On 9 October Justice B Vijaysen Reddy ruled that any award of the tender would be subject to the court's further orders. This is the same tender BRS working president KTR called irregular over the weekend. We found no detailed reply from the government to his allegations.

On Tuesday, a bench headed by Acting Chief Justice P Sam Koshy will hear the Enforcement Directorate's petition seeking a day-to-day trial in its nine money-laundering complaints against former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and others, Deccan Chronicle and ThePrint reported. The agency also wants all the accused to appear in person. The court has listed the petition with two older petitions asking for faster trials. The cases have been pending for about a decade.

Today's agenda: the INDIA bloc march in Delhi, with a large Telangana contingent; the RR-2 hearing in the High Court; and any word from the Secretariat on when ministers will meet on El Niño.