Kiran may go in for cabinet reshuffle

Kiran may go in for cabinet reshuffle

HYDERABAD: Till a fortnight ago everything seemed to be going for Kiran Kumar Reddy. Though he started on a false note, he bumbled along and completed one year in office on November 25, consolidating his position in the process. But politics like a cricket match is a game of glorious uncertainties. Just as he seemed comfortable, the scion of the YSR family Jaganmohan Reddy has struck at the base of the Congress party in the state.
If there was one victor at the vote of confidence in the assembly in early morning of Tuesday, it was Jagan. In spite of the best efforts of Kiran Kumar Reddy and the emissaries of the high command like K V P Ramachandra Rao, 16 MLAs broke ranks from the Congress and voted against the government. This they did with full knowledge that doing so will make them liable for losing their job. But the funniest part is that the Congress party is in double mind whether to take action against them.
A party whip was issued to them, so for violating the whip their membership of the House can be terminated. They also would be barred from contesting polls till the next general elections. But the Congress avers that chucking them out of the House could be worse. There will have to be byelections and in these byelections, YSR Congressmen would romp home. However, not taking action against them could be disastrous: it will prompt more Congressmen to remain in the party fold, yet work for the YSR Congress. In other words wreck the Congress party from within.
Insider sources indicate that Kiran in a bid to mollify sections of his party is now mulling a cabinet reshuffle. This would involve appointment of a new deputy chief minister who will be from the Andhra area. This deputy chief minister would be given the home portfolio. There is already a deputy chief minister from Telangana: Damodar Raja Narasimha. Three of Chiranjeevi's men will be offered a cabinet berth: this includes C Ramachandraiah and Ganta Srinivasa Rao. A third berth could have been offered to Shobha Nagi Reddy, but she is already in Jagan's camp. Home minister Sabita Indira Reddy and finance minister Annam Ramnarayan Reddy will get lesser portfolios.
Whether this will mollify the dissidents and create a more broad based structure in the Congress is not certain, but what is clear is that power broker from YSR's time: K V P Ramachandra Rao has taken a solid beating. Parachuted by the high command, KVP tried in vain to woo Jagan loyalists. Stories doing the rounds say that he offered all sorts of goodies to the Jagan loyalist MLA's sitting in Kiran's chambers and that of minister Vatti Vasant Kumar but to no effect. It is said that Jagan who was tight fisted all this while decided to be magnanimous and that did the trick. On Tuesday, at a post-confidence motion win party at the chief minister's camp office, many ministers went hammer and tongs against KVP suggesting that the 'wheeler dealer' be kicked out of the state for good.
It is certain that Chiranjeevi and Asaduddin Owaisi are the winners of the confidence motion also. Their 24 MLAs collectively played a crucial role in keeping the Kiran government in place. They are now going to extract their pound of flesh. Apart from getting ministerships, Chiranjeevi will dictate terms to Kiran on transfer, postings and allocation of projects. Ditto is the case with the Owaisi brothers who will ensure that their hegemony in the Old City continues with the support of the government of the day.
For the record, Chandrababu Naidu who moved the no-confidence motion lost. But that is only theoretically: in effect he won, because his motion exposed the weakness in the Congress ranks. Now, Naidu can have the last laugh as the ruling party grapples with dissidence in its ranks. His fervent hope: that the party disintegrates in the next few years.
The TRS cannot figure out whether to be happy or be unhappy at the results. A TRS senior said: "With a little more effort from us, the government could have been toppled. If only we had wooed Congress MLAs from Telangana to vote against the motion. We are unhappy now." But another line of thinking is that if Jagan becomes stronger, the high command, to cut him down to size, might grant Telangana. This will contain Jagan to the Andhra region.