Hyderabad: As many as six ministers hailing
from the Telangana region abstained from the crucial Andhra
Pradesh Cabinet meeting here on Thursday.
The six ministers stayed back in New Delhi and chose to
skip the meeting even as four other Telangana ministers, who
also arrived at the national capital yesterday to meet Union
ministers and senior congress leaders on the statehood issue,
returned this morning just in time for the Cabinet meet.
Senior ministers K Jana Reddy, Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Komati
Reddi Venkat Reddy, D Sridhar Babu, P Sudhershan Reddy and
Basuraj Saraiah were absent from the Cabinet meeting chaired
by Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy.
This was the first time that so many ministers abstained
from a Cabinet meeting for reasons other than official,
government sources said.
Though its schedule was fixed more than a week ago, the
Telangana ministers preferred to join their other colleagues
in New Delhi and lobby for the statehood case.
Ministers D K Aruna, V Sunitha Lakshma Reddy, R Venkat
Reddy and P Shanker Rao flew down from New Delhi today and
attended the Cabinet meeting.
PTI
