Rama Krishna Sangem
As per an earlier indication from the Congress sources, Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy is supposed to expand his 15 months old Cabinet on April 3, Thursday. He is supposed to take four new ministers into his 12 member strong council of ministers. But, that hasn’t happened. There are no indications from the CM camp on whether this expansion will take place in the next few days. By all means, it appears it is delayed by several more days, or even weeks.
After Revanth’s earlier visit to Delhi in the last week of March where he met Congress top brass – Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and KC Venugopal, and of course, Meenakshi Natarajan – media was informed that the Cabinet would be expanded by or couple of days later Ugadi, that fell on March 30. Later, some ministerial aspirants were informally told by the CM sources that the shuffling would take place on April 3. Even when Revanth called on Governor Jishnu Varma on the occasion of Ugadi, the date seems to have figured in their talks.
But, as the CM and his team of senior ministers and PCC president Mahesh Goud returned from Delhi on April 2 evening, after staging a dharna at Jantar Mantar pressing for constitutional protection for the 42 per cent reservations for BCs adopted by the state assembly, the mood is changed. There is no word on the Cabinet expansion, as when it will be held. Mahesh Goud told mediapersons that the issue is in the court of the AICC and that it might take some more time.
What’s Revanth’s plan?
CM Revanth Reddy wanted to fill 4 out of the 6 vacancies in his Cabinet for now. Going by the size of Telangana assembly, the CM can take only maximum 18 ministers (up to 15 per cent of the total number of MLAs, that is 119). Already, there are 12 ministers including the CM. He wanted to keep two berths vacant , keeping in mind the future exigencies in view. Usually, CMs prefer to keep some vacancies in the Cabinet to keep alive the hopes of the aspirants.
If they fill all the vacancies at one go, it will be difficult to accommodate any new faces into the ministry. Then, any additions will have be made only by dropping some incumbents, which would be a big headache. Not only that, once the Cabinet is filled to the full size, the left-outs will start dissidence voices, another headache. In case of Revanth Reddy there is another uncertainty – as the fate of 10-13 defected BRS MLAs hangs in balance, as the apex court is hearing the case. That is a big X factor, needs political attention.
So, the four senior MLAs touted to be taken into the Cabinet are Sudarshan Reddy – Bodhan, Nizamabad district, G Vivek Venkataswamy – Chennur (SC), Adilabad district, Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, Munugode, Nalgonda district and Vakiti Srihari, Makhtal, Mahabubnagar district., making it 2 Reddys, 1 SC and 1 BC. Of them, two – Vivek and Rajagopal Reddy were promised minister posts by the AICC leaders before they joined Congress from BJP two years ago.
In case of Srihari, the minister post was promised to him by Revanth himself during the assembly elections. Sudarshan Reddy represents the till now unrepresented Nizamabad district in the Cabinet. This list appears unacceptable to Rahul Gandhi and his team – who want more representation to the SC/ST/BC and minorities. This at a time when AICC is carrying a nation wide campaign of Jai Bapu, Jai Bheem and Jai Samvidhan, on social justice plank.
So what will happen now?
Now the latest plan seems to filling all the 6 berths in one go. Plus there are 2 Cabinet rank posts – Assembly Deputy Speaker and a Government Chief Whip. So, all the 8 slots will be clubbed together for social justice combination purpose. Mahesh Goud clearly said that there will be representation to 2 BCs, and a minority, obviously Muslim, in the Cabinet. But there is no Muslim MLA in Congress now. There’s a Muslim MLC, but will he be taken in, or some senior Muslim leader will be made an MLC and taken in? This is to be seen.
Meanwhile, the delayed exercise of Cabinet expansion has fueled hopes of many others in the party. Representations and letter politics have begun. Senior Congress leader K Jana Reddy wrote a letter to the AICC leaders seeking representation to someone from Hyderabad city and Ranga Reddy districts. Some Lambada (ST) and Madiga (SC) MLAs too have led delegations seeking ministerial posts to their fraternity. Naturally, it will take sometime for the CM and AICC to sort out these issues.
Till when, is uncertain. Rahul Gandhi is leaving for a US tour from the third week of April and will be back by the month end. Will there be green signal for expansion before that or after is a matter of speculation.
