Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister and TRS supremo K Chandrashekhar Rao has finalised a list of MLC candidates. TRS has 90 MLAs in the Telangana Assembly of 119 seats. With this strength, TRS can comfortably bag five MLC seats.

KCR has accommodated one seat each to OC, BC, ST and minority sections, while allocating the fifth slot to friendly party AIMIM. The four MLC candidates are Mahamood Ali (minority), Sheri Subhash Reddy (OC), satyavathi Rathod (ST) and Egge Mallesham (BC).

The nomination process for MLC elections, scheduled on March 12, has already begun. TRS is expected to file nominations on Sunday. The MLC term for Mhamood Ali, Mohammad Salim, Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy, Shabbir Ali and T Santhoshkumar is expiring on March 29.

All the four TRS MLC candiates met KCR and KTR and thanked them for the opportunity.

Subhash Reddy is chairman of Telangana Minerals Development Corporation. Mallsheam is president of Telangana Kuruma Association; Satyavathi won on TDP ticket from Dornakal in 2009 and lost the elections on TRS ticket in 2014. Mahamood Ali is home minister now and former deputy chief minister during 2014-18 term of Telangana Assembly.

Meanwhile. AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has thanked KCR for allocating one MLC seat to his party. While thanking the TRS party, Owaisi exerted confidence of winning all the 17 MP seats by TRS and AIMIM in Telangana.

Fulfilling poll promises of unemployment allowance, hike in social security pensions and farm loan waiver, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao on Friday presented Vote-on-Account Budget for 2019-20 that has an expenditure of Rs 1,82,017 crore, an increase of 4 per cent over the previous year’s Budget.

Presenting the interim budget in the Assembly, KCR, as Rao is popularly known, said the GSDP growth rate of the state has doubled since its formation in 2014 and its Budget for the new fiscal showed a revenue expenditure of Rs 1,07,302 crore and capital expenditure is Rs 74,715 crore.

KCR said since the Central government introduced a Vote-on-Account budget for the next year and as there was no clarity as to what would be the priorities for expenditure, the state government too was presenting an interim budget.

“In 2019-20, the estimated revenue surplus is Rs 6,564 crore and fiscal deficit is Rs 27,749 crore,” Rao said in his budget speech.

The fiscal deficit is 2.81 per cent of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP).

“The state’s own revenues for Budget Estimate (BE) of 2019-20 are at Rs 94,776 crore in comparison with Revised Estimate (RE) of 2018-19 at Rs 72,777 crore,” Rao said.

Transfers from the Centre as per BE 2019-20 is Rs 22,835 crore, while in RE 2018-19, these are estimated at Rs 28,042 crore, he said.

“The growth rate of GSDP, at constant prices, was 4.2 per cent in the two years prior to state formation. By 2017-18, this accelerated by more than twice to 10.4 per cent.”

KCR told the House the average growth rate in state’s own tax revenue in the first four years after its formation was 17.71 per cent, making Telangana the number one state in the country.

He attributed this to prudent fiscal management and clamping down on corruption.

He proposed Rs 1,810 crore in the Budget to introduce unemployment allowance of Rs 3,016 per month to the eligible. This was one of the promises made by his Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in the Assembly elections held on December 7.

Meeting another poll promise, he said the investment support for every farmer per acre per year would be increased to Rs 10,000 from existing Rs 8,000. The amount proposed in 2019-20 towards ‘Rythu Bandhu’ scheme is Rs 12,000 crore.

He announced all agriculture term loans up to Rs 1 lakh, outstanding as on December 11, 2018, would be waived off as promised during the elections. He proposed Rs 6,000 crore for this purpose.

He said the ‘Assara’ pensions now covering aged, widowed, single women, beedi workers, people suffering from filariasis, handloom workers, and toddy tappers were proposed to be increased from Rs 1,000 per month to Rs 2,016.

“For differently abled persons, I propose to increase their monthly pensions from Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,016. We are reducing the age limit for old age pensions from 65 years to 57 years. This will benefit more people.”

The recently elected TRS government presented its budget for Rs. 1.82 lakh crore in the State Assembly. Making a statement in the House, Telangana CM Chandrasekhara Rao continued his typical style of attacking, provoking and insulting Andhras though in an indirect manner. His promise to the people is that he would continue the Telangana reconstruction activities that were begun five years ago. KCR says they were undoing the damage done to Telangana during the regimes of United AP rulers.

KCR’s insults are seen as indeed big disappointments by AP people. He used his political manipulations to separate Andhras from well-developed Hyderabad capital city. Later, he joined hands with PM Modi and Amit Shah only to prevent the Central government from helping AP. Now, KCR has taken the ultimate decision of putting Jaganmohan Reddy in power so as to take AP under his total control. Thus, he would find it far easier to get abnormal political influence in national politics.

For KCR, everything is politics and nothing matters when it comes to systematic administration. Andhra political leaders are discussing latest budget speech of KCR. They say there is no doubt Jagan will certainly face the bad consequences of KCR’s continuing anti-Andhra stand.

Hyderabad: Adding more fuel to the speculation over possible candidates for Lok Sabha elections, TRS supremo and Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has indicated that some senior leaders didn’t get berths in the Cabinet because of forth coming Parliament elections. This statement has almost confirmed that T Harish Rao, former minister and nephew of KCR, will be a Lok Sabha candidate most probably from Medak constituency, said a source.

“Few of our senior leaders didn’t ministries in the latest expansion of the state Cabinet. We’re going for Lok Sabha elections in two or three months. That’s the reason, they (some senior leaders) didn’t get berths in the Cabinet,” said KCR.

The chief minister has advised his new Cabinet ministers to work hard and sincerely to earn good name and credibility for the TRS government.

KCR is keen on Khammam and Mahabubabad Lok Sabha constituencies as TRS lagged in some segments during the Assembly elections. “We’ll bridge these gaps in Khammam and Mahabubabad Lok Sabha constituencies. The list of candidates for 16 Lok Sabha constituencies will be announced soon. Party working president KT Rama Rao will coordinate the Lok Sabha elections along with ministers, MPs and MLAs. We’ll bag all the five MLC seats and the process has begun,” remarked KCR.

TRS is confident of winning MLC from teachers and graduates’ constituencies. The candidates will be chosen based on an internal survey.

Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has decided to conduction elections for local bodies– Mandal, Zilla Parishad and Municipalities– after Lok Sabha polls in the state. New Municipal Act on the lines of new Panchayati Raj Act is on anvil, he said.

The notification for MPTC, ZPTC, Municipal elections is expected to be announced in last week of April after Lok Sabha elections.

“Lok Sabha polls will be held in April and soon after the polls, the notification for MPTC and ZPTC will be announced. Then after, we’ll hold elections in Municipalities. New Panchayati Raj Act is a fool-proof system and we need new Municipal Act as well. The state government will study on Municipal Act and prepare a draft on this very soon. A team of officials will tour model cities across the country before preparing the draft on the Municiapl Act. Most probably, new Municipal Act will be in place by May this year,” said KCR.

TRS is also keen on selection of MLC candidates. Election schedule for five MLC seats was already announced. Next schedule for two teachers’ constituency and one graduates’ constituency will be issued soon. It’s learnt that the chief minister may finalise the list of candidates in a day or two.

Failing to Induct nephew T Harish Rao and son K T Rama Rao into Cabinet should not been seen as favouritism but viewed with lens of caste. Had both of them been inducted, the Velma dominance in the cabinet would have become easy target for the opposition to attack TRS in Lok Sabha elections. While not having a woman in cabinet failed to play a role in assembly elections, evidently the next target for opposition is caste and family politics.

However, K T Rama Rao has been made working president, but Harish Rao is nothing but a merely a MLA. For all the work he has done for TRS, keeping him as MLA would reduce the excitement of party cadre. The duo Harish and KCR have not met each other since elections and only at public meetings. There is a need to get the ball rolling for Harish and the point that he would play larger role in national politics has been negated by various party members.

While KCR thought about opposition and caste equation, he evidently didn’t think about his party. Leaders like Revanth Reddy in assembly elections allegedly lost due to the campaign of Harish Rao.

While it’s not only time to give due recognition to Harish, everyone knows that K T Rama Rao will be made minister.

Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao on Tuesday expanded his cabinet with the induction of 10 new ministers.

Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan administered the oath of office and secrecy to the ministers at a ceremony held at Raj Bhavan.

Of the new ministers sworn in, five were in the previous cabinet while the rest are first-time ministers.

The ministers who took oath are A. Indrakaran Reddy, Eatala Rajender, Koppula Eshwar, T. Srinivas Yadav, V. Prashanth Reddy, S. Niranjan Reddy, V. Srinivas Goud, E. Dayakar Rao, Malla Reddy and G. Jagadishwar Reddy.

KCR, as Rao is popularly known, has not included his son K. T. Rama Rao and nephew T. Harish Rao who were ministers in his previous cabinet.

Rama Rao was appointed as Working President of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) following the party’s landslide victory in the December 7 Assembly elections.

This was the first cabinet expansion by KCR, who took over as the Chief Minister for a second term on December 13.

Hyderabad: Ending all sorts of speculations over Cabinet expansion, Telangana chief minister and TRS supremo K Chandrashekhar Rao has finally confirmed muhurat at 11:30am on February 19. KCR has directed the officials to make arrangements for the Cabinet expansion.

The chief minister KCR has met the Governor ESL Narasimhan at Raj Bhavan and discussed on Cabinet expansion. After the CM-Governor meeting, the chief minister’s office (CMO) has officially announced the decision on Cabinet expansion. The Oath taking ceremony will be performed at Raj Bhavan.

It’s been over two months that Telangana chief minister KCR along with home minister Mahamood Ali has been running the TRS government ever since the party won Assembly elections on December 11, 2018. The TRS government will have to induct 16 more ministers and finalise candidates for 16 Lok Sabha constituencies, 16 MLCs and other nominated posts. Congress party has just 19 MLAs in Telangana Legislative Assembly as against TRS’ 90 including two defected MLAs, who contested as rebels, and can comfortably get one MLC.

TRS party leaders and cadres are eagerly awaiting the list of 48 candidates for Lok Sabha, MLC and other nominated posts.

However, it’s not cleared that how many will get berths in the Cabinet as speculation is still rife over the number. Earlier, party sources said that second phase of Cabinet expansion likely after Lok Sabha polls.