VIJAYAWADA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision not to take any one from either of the two Telugu states of AP and Telangana into the Union Council of Ministers has come as a shocker to BJP leaders and cadres.
Ahead of the cabinet reshuffle, Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya from Telangana was dropped while there remained a void in AP after Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu was elected vice-president of India.
It was widely expected that both the slots would be filled in this reshuffle, but the calculations of analysts went topsy-turvy with AP and Telangana drawing a blank in the Cabinet.
As far as AP is concerned, BJP state chief and Vizag MP Kambhampati Haribabu was in the reckoning till late on Saturday night and he, along with his family members, flew to Delhi on receiving a call from Prime Minister’s Office to rush to the nation’s capital.
His aides in Visakhapatnam confirmed to the TNIE on Saturday night that in the unofficial list that had been circulated by the party to the leaders in states, Haribabu’s name was very much there. “The list that we got had Haribabu’s name,” he said but Haribabu’s hopes crashed when the national anthem was played at Rashtrapathi Bhavan this morning, concluding the cabinet reshuffle, without his name being called out.
By not taking Haribabu or for that matter MP Gokaraju Gangaraju from Narasapuram, there is no AP BJP leader in the elite team. However, Ashok Gajapati Raju (Union Civil Aviation Minister) of TDP and Sujana Chowdary (MoS for Science and Technology) are in the council of ministers as the yellow party is NDA’s partner.
Though there were indications that the Ashok’s portfolio would be changed, it did not happen. Similarly, there was no offer of a third berth to the TDP contrary to speculations.
But the saving grace, as far as AP is concerned, is the promotion to Nirmala Sitaramran being allotted the defence portfolio. Though she was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka, she is quite popular in Andhra Pradesh despite the fact that she hails from Tamil Nadu. Her husband Parakala Prabhakar is communications advisor to Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
AP Assembly Speaker Kodela Sivaprasad Rao expressed happiness over Sitaraman being appointed as Defence Minister. “It is a proud moment for Telugu people as she is known very well in AP too,” he said and wished her a bright career. “I wish that she sorts out the border issues effectively, as she had been fulfilling all her responsibilities efficiently till date. Her elevation is the expression of the aspiration of the National Women’s Parliament held in Vijayawada in February this year,”he said.