HYDERABAD: Amid mounting criticism for having ignored women in the present cabinet too, like the previous cabinet, chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Saturday assured that two women MLAs would be inducted into the cabinet in next expansion.
“We still have six vacancies in the Cabinet. Next time we will take two women in the Cabinet,” the CM announced in the State Legislative Assembly on Saturday.
The Chief Minister announced this in his reply to the debate on the vote-on-account budget. In his speech, the Congress member P Sabitha Indra Reddy pointed that there was no woman in the Cabinet during the first term of Rao and no one was taken into the Cabinet in the second term too. In response, the Chief Minister said that two women would be inducted into the Cabinet.
He said that the TRS gave one seat to a woman in the ensuing MLC elections. “The TRS won in the recent Assembly elections, as the party got more women votes,” Chief Minister Chandrasekhar Rao pointed out.
On Sabitha’s request that the women-run banks in Rangareddy district should not be closed, the Chief Minister said that the government would study and continue them if they were performing well. He also said that the to-be-started food processing units too would be given to IKP women. The interest free loan amounts given to women would be increased up to Rs 10 lakh, he said.