It appears that all is not well between Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan.
This is because the Governor has still not given her approval to KCR’s decision to nominate Padi Kaushik Reddy as MLC under Governor’s quota.
The cabinet meeting chaired by KCR approved nomination of Kaushik Reddy as MLC under Governor’s quota on August 1 and referred to Governor for formal approval.
Under normal conditions, the governor will approve and issue a notification within one or two days.
But in this case, the Governor did not approve Kaushik Reddy’s nomination as MLC and did not issue a notification to this effect even after 12 days.
This triggered speculations that Governor is not happy at Kaushik Reddy’s nomination as MLC under Governor’s quota and for that reason she has kept this file pending at Raj Bhavan.
Kaushik Reddy from Huzurabad constituency defected from Congress into TRS in July third week and secured MLC post within ten days of joining TRS.
As per norms, the Governor cannot reject the decision approved by the cabinet. But the governor can take his own time in giving approval.
It seems Tamilisai Soundararajan has been utilising this opportunity to delay Kaushik’s nomination as MLC as long as possible.
KCR used to be very close with previous governor ESL Narasimhan. He used to visit Raj Bhavan almost every week to meet Narasimhan but after Narasimhan was replaced by Tamilisai, KCR is avoiding Raj Bhavan except during unavoidable circumstances like during Legislative Assembly session and national festivals like Independence Day, Republic Day etc.