Andhra Pradesh   

Additional portfolios allotted to A.P. Ministers

Special Correspondent

Chief Minister retains Law and Order and General Administration

HYDERABAD: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy on Thursday shed the bunch of portfolios he was holding and allotted them to 23 Cabinet colleagues as additional responsibilities on a temporary basis.

He retained only the subjects of Law & Order and General Administration with himself as Chief Ministers have traditionally done in the past. An already long list of portfolios that Dr. Reddy held had grown longer after the resignation of six Ministers belonging to the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) earlier this month.

This move is indicative of Dr. Reddy's resolve to postpone indefinitely the Cabinet expansion till the completion of the municipal elections. It is also aimed at blunting criticism that he is holding on to nearly a dozen many portfolios, many of them considered crucial like Health, Energy, Excise, Women Welfare, Tribal Welfare. Moreover, the vacancies caused by the TRS Ministers and change of portfolios of two Congress Ministers — M. Satyanarayana Rao and Botcha Satyanarayana — had increased the Chief Minister's burden.

Significantly, all the Ministers now have three to four portfolios each but Botcha Satyanarayana, who was relieved of Major Industries portfolio, in the wake of the Volkswagen controversy, has only one, Marketing, to which he was shifted.

Even Mr. Satyanarayana Rao has been allocated an additional portfolio - Cinematography. He too was shifted to Sports and Culture from Endowments in the wake of the temple lands scam.

The Endowments portfolio has been allotted to the Panchayat Raj Minister, J. C. Diwakar Reddy, and Major Industries to the Tourism Minister, J. Geetha Reddy. Finance Minister K. Rosaiah, said the Cabinet expansion would be effected only after municipal elections. He refuted the Opposition's criticism that the administration had suffered because the Chief Minister had retained too many subjects with himself. He refused to join issue on the merits of the arrangement since the allocation was the prerogative of the Chief Minister.

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