)
Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday expanded his Cabinet with six more ministers and allocated important portfolios such as Industries, Power, Roads & Buildings and Commercial Taxes, so far held by himself, to them.
This is the first Cabinet expansion undertaken by KCR after he formed the government in June this year. With this, the total strength of the council of ministers has gone up to 18, which is the upper limit of the Telangana Cabinet. The number of ministers should not exceed 15 per cent of the total strength (120) of the state legislative Assembly according to parliamentary norms.
By filling all the slots at one go apart from allocating important portfolios to almost all the new ministers, the chief minister seems to have sent out a signal that he is concerned about the work to be done in those departments. The six ministers were administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor ESL Narasimhan at a swearing-in ceremony at Raj Bhavan in the morning.
KCR's son KT Rama Rao was the lone minister to be absent at the swearing-in ceremony. Also some of the known Cabinet aspirants such as Koppula Eshwar and Konda Surekha also stayed away from the function.
Of the new ministers, Jupally Krishna Rao was given the industry portfolio apart from textiles and sugar while C Laxma Reddy was given energy. Both of them hail from Mahaboobnagar district, which did not find representation at the time of the Cabinet formation.
Former Telugu Desam party (TDP) leader from Khammam district, Thummala Nageshwara Rao, who is not a member of either the legislative Assembly or the legislative Council, was inducted in the Cabinet and was allotted the R&B portfolio. Khammam was the only other district that did not have representation in the state Cabinet.
Thummala is expected to play a key role since the state government wants to improve the road network on a priority basis by investing as much as Rs 15,000 crore in two years.
Two other ministers, A Indrakaran Reddy (housing, law and endowments) and Ajmeera Chandulal (ST welfare, tourism and culture) hail from Adilabad and Warangal in north Telangana while the sixth minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav (commercial taxes and cinematography) represents the Sanathnagar constituency in Hyderabad.
Talasani, a TDP legislator, had resigned as MLA after confirmation of the Cabinet birth yesterday just to avoid any political embarrassment on possible invocation of anti-defection law by his parent party. The induction of Thummala and Talasani - though it created a lot of heartburn among the existing leaders of TRS - was primarily aimed at weakening the TDP base in Khammam and Hyderabad, observers say.
Except C Laxma Reddy, the new ministers are also newcomers as far as the TRS party is concerned. Jupally and Chandulal had joined the party just before the elections while Indrakaran Reddy won the election on a BSP ticket after he failed to secure either Congress or the TRS nomination.
A few of the existing ministers also share a similar track record as KCR sought to bring strong leaders from other parties as part of a winning strategy in the elections.
Meanwhile, protests continued on the second day today by the followers of Koppula Eshwar, party MLA from Karimnagar district, for denying him a Cabinet berth.
The city of Hyderabad has the largest representation in the Cabinet with four ministers even though only one MLA won on the party ticket in the Assembly elections. This, political observers say, was done to improve the party prospects in the impending elections to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).
MINISTERS AND PORTFOLIOS
- Jupally Krishna Rao: Industry, textiles and sugar
- C Laxma Reddy: Energy
- Thummala Nageshwara Rao: Roads & Buildings
- A Idrakaran Reddy: housing, law and endowments
- Ajmeera Chandulal: ST welfare, tourism and culture
- Talasani Srinivas Yadav: Commercial taxes and cinematography
