Antony heads new GoM on Telangana - TeluguPeople.com News

New Delhi: Barely two days after constituting a 10-member GoM (Group of Ministers) on the creation of Telangana State, the Union government on Tuesday reorganised the high-powered ministerial panel by dropping HRD Minister M Pallam Raju and bringing Defence Minister A K Antony, and also reducing the number of members to seven.

Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, Defence Minister A K Antony, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Minister of Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas M Veerappa Moily and Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh are the members of the reconstituted GoM.

Minister of State for Personnel and Prime Minister's Office V Narayanasamy will be the Special Invitee in the reconstituted GoM which will look into the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and formation of Telangana.

Apart from Antony, the Union Ministers who were newly inducted in the GoM are Azad, Moily and Ramesh. The Union Ministers dropped from the GoM are Law Minister Kapil Sibal, Water Resources Minister Harish Rawat, Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath, Road Trans port Minister Oscar Fernandes, Power Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia besides Raju.

Raju hails from Seemandhra region of Andhra Pradesh and is opposed to creation of Telangana. He has submitted his resignation letter to Prime Minister as mark of protest and did not attend the Cabinet meeting yesterday.

After the October 3 meeting of the Union Cabinet, which approved the creation of Telangana, government had announced that the GoM on Telangana will have ten Union Ministers as its members.

The GoM members have been carefully chosen, as all of them are dealing with the State and are familiar with the issues. Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad was also doubling till recently as AICC General Secretary in-charge of Andhra Pradesh and is credited with a key role in the Congress decision-making on Telangana.

Defence Minister A K Antony and Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily have been dealing with the issue as part of Antony Committee.

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh is elected to Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram has been involved in all the decisions on the formation of Telangana and in fact he had made the original statement on December 9, 2009, which had to be subsequently put on hold.

It is expected that since they are all familiar with the issues involved in the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and they can easily resolve all the issues.