A day after Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao met Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan for prolonged discussions, both of them again had another round of marathon talks at the Raj Bhavan which led to speculation whether a reshuffle of the Cabinet was on the cards but the same was strongly dismissed in political circles since the State Assembly was in the middle of its monsoon session.
Sources said today’s meeting was solely to discuss the proposed address of Mr. Narasimhan to the joint session of legislature on October 8 and 9 for unveiling the irrigation policy of the government. While the policy was likely to be read out by the Governor, Mr. Rao was expected to make a power point presentation on the injustice done to Telangana in irrigation sector in the combined State. He will also explain the redesign and reengineering of projects on the first day and leave the proceedings open for discussion by the members on the second day.
Speculation about a possible reshuffle of the Cabinet surfaced sometime back indicating that a couple of Ministers will get the axe and at least one woman MLA might be inducted. It was stated that one of the Ministers might be dropped on health grounds as he had not been attending to his official work for several months and even underwent treatment in the US. On Mr. Rao’s advice to take rest, he had also not attended to the Assembly. The second Minister against whom the needle of suspicion pointed hailed from Hyderabad and it was strongly argued that he might be shown the door, beside among other reasons, because the State capital was over represented in the Cabinet with four Ministers.
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Sources, however, said that there was no fresh trigger about the possibility of Cabinet reshuffle but Mr. Rao had focussed his attention on filling up nominated posts this month. Mr. Rao had reportedly asked senior officials to identify posts, particularly in the State level corporations as many of them have to be filled up with TRS cadre who did not fit into market and temple committees.