Thu. Mar 28th, 2024

Ending over two months of speculation, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday expanded his two-member Cabinet with induction of ten members. TRS Chief K Chandrashekhar Rao, who is popular as KCR among is followers stormed back to power in December last year registering a resounding victory in the state. Chandrasekhar Rao took over as Chief Minister for a second term on December 13. Mohd Mehmood Ali was the only minister to take the oath of office along with him.

READ: Telangana: KCR appoints Mahmood Ali as Home Minister

During the first Cabinet Expansion of the Youngest State, Six new faces -S Niranjan Reddy, Koppula Eashwar, Errabelli Dayakar Rao, V Srinivas Goud, Vemula Prashanth Reddy, and Ch Malla Reddy — found a berth in the Council of Ministers in the state.

Apart from this, A Indrakaran Reddy, Talasani Srinivas Yadav, G Jagadish Reddy, and Etela Rajender, who were part of the Cabinet in Rao’s previous term, returned as ministers again for the second term.

Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Governor ESL Narasimhan administered them the oath of office and secrecy at Raj Bhavan, in the presence of the chief minister, taking the Cabinet size to 12 in the State.

Telangana can have a maximum of 17 Ministers in the Cabinet according to the Constitutional cap of 15 percent of the assembly strength of 119 members

The Chief Minister’s nephew and senior TRS leader T Harish Rao, who earlier served as Irrigation Minister, did not figure in the list, as also the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) supremo’s son K T Rama Rao. KT Rama Rao has been however appointed as the Working President of the party in December a day after TRS registered a victory in a bid to go Nationally.

READ: KCR appointed KT Rama Rao as TRS Working President in a bid to expand nationally

However, In Cabinet Expansion, None of the woman members could make it to the Council of Ministers. Rao’s first Cabinet also did not have a woman minister.

The “delay” in Cabinet expansion had drawn fire from opposition parties who contended that it amounted “violation” of constitutional norms. Both Congress and Bhartiya Janta Party had slammed KCR for delaying.

However, rejecting the charge, the ruling TRS said a high-level committee had looked into ways to streamline the entire administration by bringing together connected departments under one ministry and the exercise took time.

Last week, the chief minister fixed Tuesday for the Cabinet expansion, as it is an “auspicious day” being “Magha Shuddha Pournami” as per the Lunar calendar. The Telangana Assembly Session is slated to begin from Feb 22.

In the elections, TRS won 88 seats, Congress won 19 seats, AIMIM won 7 seats, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) won 2 seats. The BJP managed to win only a single seat this year against its 5 MLA in 2014. Both TDP and Congress stiched alliance to take on TRS in the State Polls.

ALSO READ:

By talharashid

Part-time Traveler| Full-time Political Enthusiast | Foodie | Strong Believer of Freedom of Speech and Expressions!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *