Kiran Reddy Opts For Large Cabinet

The defiant Kadapa leader Y S Jaganmohan Reddy's exit from the Congress appears to have sent shock waves to the High Command as well as the Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy.

These shockwaves are seen to have forced the Congress to induct a large cabinet appeasing all sections, contrary to earlier plans of having a small cabinet.

Even as the swearing-in ceremony was in its concluding stages, there was a lot of discontent seen among those who were left out. Except J C Diwakar Reddy, many others expressed their resentment and asked Kiran Reddy and the High Command to explain why they were being denied the ministry despite being loyal to the party.

The first murmur of dissent came from the left out MLA from Nalgonda, Damodar Reddy, who gave a call to Telangana leaders to come out of the government, and fight for Telangana in view of tabling of Srikrishna Committee later this month.

Out of 39 legislators who took the Oath of Office at Raj Bhavan on Wednesday, 11 were new faces in the Kiran Reddy cabinet, and the rest had worked earlier in the Rosaiah cabinet.

Prominent among those who were dropped out of cabinet were Kadapa leader J C Diwakara Reddy and Nalgonda MLA Damodar Reddy.

Marri Shashidhar Reddy, who is Chairman of the National Disaster Management and an aspirant for the ministerial berth, also missed the cabinet.

Those dropped from the ministry were Pilli Subhashchandra Bose, Balineni Srinivasareddy, Shilpa Mohan Reddy, Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy and Gade Venkata Reddy, who was expecting to be made the Speaker.

The list of new faces in akiran Reddy's cabinet is as follows: Thota Narasimham, Kasu Venkata Krishna Reddy, Shailajanath, T G Venkata Reddy, Erasu Pratap Reddy, Mahidhar Reddy, D L Ravindra Reddy, Y S Vivekananda Reddy, P Shankar Rao, K Jana Reddy and Basavaraju Sariah.

Of all the 22 districts which were represented, the lone left out district was Adilabad, while 4 legislators represented Guntur, and 3 legislators each from Kadapa, Medak and Hyderabad.

The district-wise representation in the cabinet is as follows:

Srikakkulam: Dharmana Prasada Rao and Shathrucharla Vijayarama Rao

Vijayanagaram: Botsa Satyanarayana

Visakhapatnam: Pasupuleti Balaraju

East Godavari: P Vishwaroop, Thota Narasimham

West Godavari: Vatti Vasantha Kumar and Pithani Satyanarayana

Guntur: Kanna Laxminarayana, D Manikyavaraprasad, Mopidevi Venkatatamana, Kasu Venkata Krishna Reddy

Krishna: Pardhsaradhi

Prakasam: Mahidhar Reddy

Nellore: Anam Ramnarayan Reddy

Chittoor: Galla Aruna Kumari

Anantapur: N Raghuveera Reddy and Shailajanath

Kadapa: D L Ravindra Reddy, Syed Ahmedullah, Y S Vivekananda Reddy, T G Venkatesh, Erasu Pratap Reddy

Mahabubnagar: Jupally Krishna Rao and DK Aruna

Rangareddy: P Sabitha Indra Reddy

Hyderabad: Danam Nagender, Mukesh Goud and Shankar Rao

Nalgonda: Jana Reddy and Komatireddy Venkata Reddy

Khammam: Ramreddy Venkata Reddy

Warangal: Ponnala Lakshmaiah

Karimnagar: Duddilla Sridhar Babu

Nizamabad: P Sudharshan Reddy

Medak: Geetha Reddy, Damodar Rajanarasimha and Sunitha Lakshmareddy.

Courtesy: INN