YS Vivekanand Reddy, younger brother of late Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy will be the most notable new face in Andhra Pradesh cabinet which will be sworn in on Wednesday morning.
Governor ESL Narasimhan will administer the oath of office and secrecy to the 36-member council of ministers at 1000 hrs on Wednesday. While Kiran Kumar Reddy was sworn in as the chief minister in place of K Rosaiah on Thursday, it took almost a week for the Congress leadership to fine tune the formation of the cabinet.
Vivekanand Reddy's inclusion in the cabinet was being seen as a strategic move by AICC President Sonia Gandhi to contain the threat from his ambitious nephew YS Jaganmohan Reddy who resigned from Congress on Monday.
All the pressure mounted by Jaganamohan Reddy and his supporters could not succeed in forcing Vivekanand to change his mind. After a brief meeting on Tuesday morning at Idupulapaya, Jagan again met his uncle in the evening. But it did not yield any result and Vivekanand Reddy left for Hyderabad by train on Tuesday evening.
Vivekanand, after two minute face off with Jagan in the morning told the media that he had made up his mind to remain in Congress party. "I want to go on the path shown by my elder brother YSR and remain in the Congress. That is what I told Jagan", he said.
Apart from Vivekanand Reddy, the cabinet is likely to have two more faces from Kadapa district, Dr D L Ravindra Reddy, a known YSR baiter and Syed Ahmadullah. Though Ahmadullah has professed his loyalty to Jagan in the immediate aftermath of YSR's death in September, 2009, of late had distanced himself from him.
The other new faces likely to be inducted in the cabinet include Dr Shankar Rao, Marri Shashidhar Reddy and Jana Reddy, all from Telangana, J C Diwakar Reddy and Shailajanath.
The old faces likely to be retained by Kiran Kumar Reddy include home minister Sabita Indra Reddy, Galla Aruna Kumari, Geeta Reddy, Dharmana Prasad Rao, Kanna Lakshmi Narayana, Botsa Satyanarayana, S Vijayrama Raju and Anam Ramnarayan Reddy.
Meanwhile in a related development Kiran Kumar Reddy has effected a revamp of officials in his secretariat. Senior IAS officer J Satyanarayana is the new principal secretary to the chief minister. Warangal district collector Sridhar will be the new joint secretary to the chief minister. The present set of officials in CM's office have been shifted to other positions. CVSK Sarma has become the Special Secretary in Agriculture department while Dinesh Sharma is the new Principal Secretary, Transport.
The changes have been made just ahead of Kiran Kumar Reddy's scheduled entry in to his office for the first time on Wednesday morning. Reddy will go to CM's office on the 6th floor of Samatha Block in Secretariat where the priests from Tirumala temple will perform special puja for him. Official sources said that a file related to Aarogyasri scheme will be the first to be signed by him.
