Finally, Telangana finds place in Cabinet
New Delhi: Telangana, the newest State in India, is finally set to find a berth in the Narendra Modi government. Senior BJP leader Bandaru Dattatreya is among the party leaders invited to join the Cabinet in its first expansion on Sunday afternoon.
Telangana had gone unrepresented for all these five months even as Andhra Pradesh had two Cabinet ministers, Venkaiah Naidu and Ashok Gajapathi Raju, one each from the BJP and TDP. Nirmala Sitharaman, MoS with independent charge, also belongs to AP though not an MP from the State.
A senior BJP leader pointed out that even though the balance of power still remained tilted in favour of AP, Modi had relaxed the age criteria to give representation to the new State.
A host of other leaders are all set to join the cabinet despite holding important responsibilities in the party organisation. These include JP Nadda, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Hansraj Ahir.
Manohar Parrikar and Suresh Prabhu, both close to the PM, would also be part of the expanded team. Among the junior ministers, the names of Sanwar Lal Jat (Rajasthan), Giriraj Singh, Ram Kirpal Yadav, (both Bihar), Babul Supriyo (West Bengal), Vijay Sampla (Punjab), Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Virendra Singh Mast (both UP), Jayant Sinha (Jharkhand) and Avinash Rai Khanna are doing the rounds.
Ministers are likely to be shifted from their current portfolios could be Sadanand Gowda as railway ministry may be handed over to Suresh Prabhu. Nitin Gadkari may be relieved of rural development and retain transport. Rural development might be given to Nadda.
Nirmala Sitharaman may get a colleague as MoS Finance with Jayant Sinha joining North Block. Prakash Javadekar may be relieved of either environment and forests or information and broadcasting.
The picture remained unclear as confabulations were on till late in the night. The PM was likely to invite new inductees over tea on Sunday morning to discuss their new profile in person.
According to sources, names of three other BJP MPs have also been confirmed for inclusion in the Modi cabinet during the Sunday's expansion.
They are: Ajay Tamta from Uttarakhand, Chowdary Birendra Singh from Haryana and Ram Kripal Yadav from Bihar. Interestingly, all these three MPs had shifted their loyalties from other parties into the BJP before the Lok Sabha elections.
News Posted: 9 November, 2014
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