HYDERABAD: With dissidence brewing among several MLAs who could not make the cut at the time of the expansion of the State Cabinet on Sunday, TRS working president KT Rama Rao is now busy assuaging the ruffled feelings of those who vented out their spleen in a fit of frustration. According to sources, Rama Rao spoke to the MLAs who are feeling slighted and managed to regain their trust.
After being counselled by the TRS working president, many of the legislators ate back their words, pledging their allegiance to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and Rama Rao. A day after the Cabinet expansion, former home minister Narasimha Reddy and former deputy chief minister T Rajaiah made their displeasure known over not getting Cabinet berths. Rajaiah, however, came to the party office on Tuesday and denied criticising Chandrasekhar Rao and said that what had appeared in media was a figment of its imagination.
Serilingampally MLA Arekapudi Gandhi, who belongs to Kamma community, too was upset over not being inducted into the Cabinet. He announced that he would surrender his gunmen. He also refused to accept the whip post offered to him. Gandhi’s contention is that a junior from his caste Puvvada Ajay Kumar was inducted into the Cabinet while he got the short-shrift.
After Rama Rao spoke to the MLA, the latter’s aide said: “There is no truth in reports that the MLA surrendered his gunmen. The MLA met KTR on Tuesday and discussed proposals for the development of his constituency.”After persuasion by the TRS top leaders, former minister Jupally Krishna Rao too asked his followers not to believe the reports that were being circulated on social media. The rumour mill has it that Krishna Rao may quit TRS. “I will continue in TRS,” Krishna Rao declared in Kollapur.
Meanwhile, Bhupalpally MLA Gandra Venkata Ramana Reddy too announced that he had “no dissatisfaction over the Cabinet composition”. Nizamabad Rural MLA Bajireddy Govardhan said that he would continue in the pink party. “I will sail with the leader I believe in till the end,” Bajireddy Govardhan said. However, former ministers Jogu Ramanna and Nayani Narasimha Reddy and MLA Mynampally Hanumantha Rao are yet to fall in line.