Six districts have no representation in AP cabinet

Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy had ignored six districts in the cabinet formation. There is no representation to the six districts. They are Visakhapatnam, NTR, Guntur, Tirupati, Annamayya and Rajampet districts, which could not make it to the new cabinet.

In all, 11 ministers from the outgoing cabinet were able to find their place in the new cabinet. Botsa Satyanarayana, Seediri Appala Raju, Chennuboyina Srinivasa Venugopala Krishna, Taneti Vanitha, Amzad Basha, Buggana Rajendranath, Gummanuri Jayaram, Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy and Narayanaswamy. The name of Adimulapu Suresh was added in the last minute by removing Tippeswamy from the earlier list and thus 11 ministers from the outgoing cabinet have made it to the new cabinet.

Interestingly, four dominant castes were also kept aside by Jagan Mohan Reddy. Kamma, Brahmin, Aryavyasya and Kshatriya MLAs were not included in the present cabinet. In the outgoing cabinet, Kodali Nani represented the Kamma caste, while Velampalli Srinivasa Rao represented the Aryavyasya. Brahmin community was given the deputy speaker post.

However, to compensate this, the chief minister is said to have decided to create AP State Development Board and appoint Kodali Nani in the place, giving him the cabinet rank. Similarly, the AP Planning Board deputy chairman post, which is vacant since 2019, is likely to be given to Brahmin MLA Malladi Vishnu. It is not known how Jagan Mohan Reddy would pacify these castes, and the leftover castes of Kshatriya and Aryavysya.

Sources said that Jagan Mohan Reddy had considered the name of Vasantha Venkata Krishna Prasad from Mylavaram constituency in NTR district to replace Kodali Nani from the Kamma community. However, it was dropped in the last minute and none of them could make it to the cabinet.

While the inclusion of firebrand MLAs R K Roja and Ambati Rambabu in the new cabinet were expected, but the exclusion of these castes were not expected as Jagan Mohan Reddy has been doing the caste balancing exercise from the beginning.