Nominated posts: Kiran, Botsa strikes deal

HYDERABAD: After getting the consent of the Congress high command for the exercise of filling nominated posts in the government, chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and PCC president Botcha Satyanarayana are getting ready to appoint leaders of their choice to those posts.

Kiran and Botcha, who had been at loggerheads till a few days ago over the choice of leaders for key nominated posts in the government, have at last worked out a compromise formula to accommodate leaders from both of their camps in the posts.

It is learnt that the party high command gave its nod for the list together prepared by Kiran Reddy and Botcha during their recent Delhi visit.

AICC general secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh affairs Ghulam Nabi Azad is understood to have asked the two top leaders to use the exercise of filling nominated posts to arrest the exodus of Congress legislators to the fledgling YSR Congress.

According to sources, the Congress top brass is of the opinion that though it is not possible to stop the MLAs, who have already decided to join the YSRC, the issue of filling nominated posts could, up to some extent, contain them if their close aides are given posts in the government.

Kiran and Botcha feel the process of filling nominated posts will rejuvenate the party second-rung leaders in the run-up to the 2014 polls. The CM has recently promised that he will fill all the nominated posts in the government by Sankranti.

Several Congress leaders have intensified their lobbying for themselves to get a key post. There are around 40 state-run corporations in the state, whose governing bodies are lying vacant now.

Prominent among them are the AP State Road Transport Corporation (whose chairman's term will end in a month), AP State Minorities Commission, AP State Minorities Finance Corporation, AP State SC/ST Commission, AP Women's Commission and AP Commission for Backward Classes, for which there is intense competition among aspirants.

Secunderabad MLA and film actress Jayasudha, former chief minister N Janardhan Reddy's wife N Rajyalakshmi and former MLC Majji Sarada are prominent among the aspirants to the post of chairperson of AP Women's Commission.

Though Kiran had favoured Jayasudha earlier for the post, following some apprehensions from the officials that appointing an MLA in that post might pose legal problems to the government, Reddy is now considering Rajyalakshmi's name.

APSRTC chairman M Satyanarayana Rao's term is going to end in a month's time. Former Speaker KR Suresh Reddy and former minister Gade Venkata Reddy are trying for that post now.

The chief minister is said to be in favour of appointing Suresh Reddy to the post. Congress leader and businessman Abid Rasool Khan and state Congress minorities' wing president Mohammed Sirajuddin are competing for the post of the chairman of AP State Minorities Commission.

CM is planning to fill all the posts in a manner that every district gets one chairman post and every Assembly segment one director's post.

Though Kiran and the PCC chief have worked out a compromise formula to accommodate leaders from each other's camp, Union minister K Chiranjeevi and deputy chief minister Damodara Rajanarasimha are demanding a share for their groups.