Raja Narasimha is deputy CM

C Damodar Raja Narasimha, minister for higher education and agriculture (in charge), has been appointed as deputy chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. Governor ESL Narasimhan issued orders today appointing him to the post following the Congress high command’s decision to nominate a person from Telangana as deputy chief minister owing to the ongoing political unrest in the region.

Raja Narasimha, an engineering graduate, represents the Andole Assembly constituency in Medak district. He became minister for the first time in 2004 after the Congress won the Assembly elections after a gap of 10 years in 2004 and then in 2009. He had earlier held primary education and marketing portfolios in the state Cabinet. His father, Raja Narasimha, was a three-time MLA from Andole, an SC reserved constituency, in 1967, 1972 and 1978.

 

Raja Narasimha is likely to be given the home ministry in the ensuing cabinet reshuffle as had been followed earlier.

The name of Raja Narasimha was doing the rounds ever since the party high command said the deputy chief minister would be from Telangana. The practice of appointing deputy chief minister was discontinued in the 70s only to be revived briefly in the 90s when Koneru Ranga Rao, a minister from Krishna district, was appointed as deputy chief minister in the then Congress government led by Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy.

State industries minister J Geeta Reddy, who also belongs to Medak district, had actively lobbied for the post but in vain. Earlier this week, the Congress high command had appointed Botsa Satynarayana, minister for transport, as the new PCC chief in place of D Srinivas.