KCR Busy In Selecting Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries

Faced with the problem of being able to select only a limited number of ministers when there are as many as 90 MLAs of his party in the Assembly, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has decided to appoint more than a dozen Parliamentary Secretaries to satisfy the aspirations of a large number of legislators, it is learnt.

The Chief Minister can appoint only 17 ministers (including him there can be only 18 ministers - 15% of the number of MLAs, which is 119), and other positions he can accommodate his people in are the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker, a Chief Whip, three whips, and Chairpersons for State-owned corporations like TSRTC, TSIDC, TSIIC, Diary Development Corporation etc. This leads to him having to resort to making several powerful MLAs Parliamentary Secretaries.

As is known, the Chief Minister will be inducting eight or ten ministers in the first phase within the next few days, giving him scope to expand the cabinet further after the Lok Sabha elections in March/April this year. The appointments of key MLAs as Parliamentary Secretaries will then go a long way in meeting the aspirations of a number of legislators, both MLAs and MLCs, to a great extent. The Chief Minister is reported to have decided to have three or four Parliamentary Secretaries even for the departments under his own jurisdiction.

Informed sources say that the CM was busy throughout yesterday with the exercise of identifying MLAs for the positions of ministers, Deputy Speaker, Whips and Parliamentary Secretaries. The exercise is continuing today too, and in all probability some final decisions will be taken in a day or two. KCR is having discussions with multiple senior leaders of the party on these issues.

Loyalty to the party, seniority, behaviour and attitudes are reportedly being considered in the selections, apart from representation to different districts, communities and sections. Among those who have been elected to the Assembly for the first time, only one or two might get some position, it is being said.