When Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy spoke of being “inspired by Hitler” in relation to how his government’s HYDRAA task force functions, he not only ignited controversy but also made a historical mistake, mixing his praise of the Nazi German dictator with a famous comic book reference.
The Congress president said his anti-encroachment team operated like Adolf Hitler’s primary “Hydra” assassination team – except Hitler never had a team by that name. Instead, “HYDRA” is the name of a fictional terrorist organization that appears in the Marvel Comics and Marvel Cinematic Universe, such as in the “Avengers” films that make up a large part of American pop culture and Hollywood.
Reddy wasn’t entirely wrong about the way he was actually referring to the Nazis, in a way. The comic book organization Hydra is shown to have ties to Nazi Germany and is associated with characters including Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, a former Nazi officer.
This fictional construction matches CM Reddy’s description of an elite team that can “assassinate anyone.”
Hitler’s actual state terror apparatus and paramilitary organizations consisted primarily of the SS (Schutzstaffel), the Gestapo (secret state police), and the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units).
In the actual history of World War II, the word “Hydra” was used to refer to Operation Hydra, a 1943 air raid carried out by the British Royal Air Force against a German missile research facility.
Reddy’s comments spark outrage
Reddy made the remarks during a public event in Bengaluru on Sunday. He was asked about the success and methods of the Hyderabad Disaster Response and Asset Protection Agency (HYDRAA), a specialized task force established in July 2024 to remove illegal encroachments on the city’s lakes, parks and stormwater canals.
While defending the agency’s aggressive destruction campaigns, Reddy offered an explanation for its name. “Hydra is Hitler’s favorite word. His core team was called Hydra, which could assassinate anyone. So, I took inspiration from Hitler and named it HYDRAA,” the Prime Minister said, mixing history and movies.
He also justified the scale of the demolitions by comparing them to war zones: “They were demolished like anything else. If you see the pictures from Iran, you can compare them to Israel or any such demolitions caused by war, and compare them to these demolitions carried out by Hydra.” Israel recently flattened the Palestinian territories in Gaza after its military operations killed more than 60,000 people there – an action that was strongly criticized by CM Reddy’s Congress party, while the BJP-led NDA government also called for peace in the region.
As for Reddy’s company HYDRAA, it was founded in 2024 and is headed by an IPS officer. It is the designated government agency in Telangana responsible for protecting government assets, lakes and public lands in Hyderabad from encroachments, as well as managing urban disaster response.
The Chief Minister’s comments immediately sparked a severe backlash from opposition parties, who used the invocation of the German dictator and the destruction of the war zone to condemn the Congress-led state government’s style of governance.
Union Minister G Kishan Reddy, a BJP MP in Secunderabad, said the “dangerous Hitler-Emergency mentality” in the Congress was “open”. Kishan Reddy demanded an unconditional apology.
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) also launched a scathing attack, calling Revanth Reddy the “new Hitler”.
The party claimed that the homes of thousands of poor and middle-class people had been demolished under his administration. The state government says HYDRAA has succeeded in reclaiming land worth more than that $1 lakh crore from the “rich” abusers alone.
