Rama Krishna Sangem
This Sunday’s Cabinet expansion of Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy is primarily intended to convey a message that Congress cares for ‘social justice’ plank. This expansion has been on the cards for over a year. Since last summer on, there have been at least a dozen rounds of talks at the AICC level on how to go about it.
Revanth assumed office in December 2023 along 11 Cabinet colleagues. Of them, four are Reddys (including the CM), a forward caste, plus three from other forward castes – one Brahmin, one Kamma and one Velama. Only two are from BCs, two SCs and one ST. So, this team with 7 forward castes and 5 from BCs, SC and STs, is somewhat against to the spirit of Congress slogan of social justice.
For the last two years , Congress top leader Rahul Gandhi has been insisting on social justice and raised a slogan of “Jitni Aabadi, Utni Haq” (Right as per the share of presence). He is the one who initiated the demand for caste census too, to find out the actual number of BCs and other SC/STs so that they get their share in political power.
Expansion minus Reddys
This round of Cabinet expansion carried out on June 8, Sunday Telangana Raj Bhavan, perhaps the first such exercise without anyone from Reddy community. We should not forget that there are 42 Reddy MLAs in the 119 strong assembly and 33 of them are in the Congress. The social justice slogan is not palatable to these Reddy MLAs.
Moreover, there has been intense pressure from at least three Reddy MLAs for a Cabinet berth – Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, Malreddy Ranga Reddy and T Ram Mohan Reddy. Besides, a few other forward caste MLAs like Premsagar Rao and Madan Mohan Rao have lobbied hard for ministerial post. The rush is unmanageable to the AICC leaders.
In Telangana, there can only be 18 ministers – 15 per cent of the assembly. So, the high command couldn’t handle all the demands for minister posts. This is in spite of some of the legislators were promised to be made ministers, before the assembly elections. Rajagopal Reddy falls in the list.
Now social justice plank is evident
After the current expansion, there are 15 ministers in the Cabinet and the share of forward castes has fallen to 7 while that of BCs – 3, SCs – 4, and ST – 1, risen to 8. Still there are 3 more berths vacant in the Cabinet and there will be another round of expansion or even reshuffle sometime later, may be after 18-24 months.
