Hyderabad: A meeting of Andhra Pradesh
Cabinet, held on Saturday after a gap of more than two months, saw
the abstention of at least four ministers, while another
marked his attendance and left in a huff.
The Cabinet meeting, chaired by Chief Minister N Kiran
Kumar Reddy, was held in the State Secretariat, which saw
ministers from Telangana region re-enter the State Secretariat
after nearly four months.
The previous meeting of the Cabinet was held in the Chief
Minister`s camp office on August 16 as the ministers from
Telangana had refused to enter the Secretariat till the demand
for a separate state was conceded.
Panchayat Raj Minister K Jana Reddy, who is leading the
Telangana struggle within the ruling Congress, did not attend
today’s Cabinet meeting as he remained in New Delhi reportedly
on "official work" related to his ministry.
Information Technology Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah, who
has been facing the Telangana heat for not taking an active
part in the movement, has not yet returned from the United
States after attending an official conference on Telugu
language late last month.
Mines and Geology Minister Galla Aruna Kumari could not
attend as she was said to be down with viral fever. Animal
Husbandry Minister P Viswaroop too skipped the Cabinet meeting
due to the death of a close relative, official sources said.
The controversial Textiles Minister P Shanker Rao, who is
in the eye of a storm after having made allegations of
corruption against many of his colleagues in the Cabinet and
who himself is now facing a probe by the state Lokayukta on
different issues, left the Cabinet meeting in a huff after
marking his attendance, the sources added.
Shanker Rao, in fact, has not been seeing the Chief
Minister eye-to-eye after having accused the latter of
"shielding the corrupt ministers".
This was only the second meeting of AP Cabinet in the
last four months, which is otherwise held once every
fortnight.
PTI
