Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Health Minister D L
Ravindra Reddy on Wednesday expressed anger and unhappiness over the
manner in which he was divested of some health-related
departments in the recent portfolio reshuffle carried out by
Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy.
"I am not unhappy over the portfolio. I have no intention
to quit my post due to so-called dissatisfaction over the
portfolio. But, the way in which I am divested of the
portfolios, it hurts me," Reddy told reporters here.
Taking exception to a media release from the Chief
Minister's Office which stated that the changes were made for
administrative convenience, Reddy wondered why all the health-
related departments were clubbed earlier and divided now.
"What administrative convenience prompted the merger of
the (health-related) departments earlier? What administrative
convenience prompted them to be divided now? This question has
no answer," he said.
The state Cabinet was expanded for the induction of three
MLAs on Monday last, after which the portfolios of some
ministers were changed.
Though Ravindra Reddy expressed his desire to quit in
protest against the developments, he refrained from doing so
after speaking to senior Congress leaders like Ghulam Nabi
Azad, in-charge of party affairs in the state, sources said.
He had a meeting with state Congress president Botsa
Satyanarayana who asked him to work in the interests of party.
"I told all Congress elders that I will be loyal to the
party and that I will not tolerate those who attack the
party," he said.
In an apparent attack on the Chief Minister, Ravindra
Reddy asked why "those in superior positions" kept silent when
Kadapa MP YS Jagan Mohan Reddy attacked Congress.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, February 08, 2012, 17:40