AP: Chiru camp set to get two cabinet berths

HYDERABAD: The long wait of PRP leaders for a place in the Kiran Kumar Reddy cabinet may come to an end soon. They expect induction of at least two MLAs into the cabinet in the first week of January or before Sankranti.The two are Ganta Srinivasa Rao (Anakapalle) and MLC C Ramachandraiah (Kadapa district). Interestingly, both the leaders are originally from the Telugu Desam stock. Srinivasa Rao belongs to Kapu community, while Ramachandraiah hails from KapuBalija community.The choice of candidates has been left to Chiranjeevi, who is said to have selected the two since the Congress is now planning to woo Kapus to compensate for the migration of Reddys, who are eager to identify themselves with YSR Congress chief Jaganmohan Reddy. Even in the Congress Coordination Committee that was constituted recently, there are three Kapus Chiranjeevi, Botcha Satyanarayana and D Srinivas.According to a PRP leader, the Congress is ready to provide two berths only for the time being to Chiranjeevi came though he sought three posts in the Kiran Kumar Reddy cabinet. "There may not be any delay this time since the Congress also knows that it is not proper on its part to make the PRP MLAs wait any longer," he said.Though there are a couple Congress MLAs who are hoping against hope that they will be inducted into the cabinet, the indications available now are that the present exercise will be limited to inclusion of the two PRP MLAs. "There will be no additions or subtractions from the Congress," a senior minister told Express.Though there is some opposition to the proposal for induction of Ramachandraiah into the cabinet from some leaders of Kadapa, Kiran Kumar Reddy may override them as Chiranjeevi has been given the choice of selection and the Congress has no role in it. "It will be entirely Chiranjeevi's decision. Even if one does not like Ramachandraiah, one has to grin and bear with it," the minister said.The PRP leaders are confident that the Congress will take their leader Chiranjeevi into the Central cabinet after after nominating him to Rajya Sabha early next year. "Though there is a provision that one can be taken into the Central cabinet and then be nominated to Rajya Sabha, it has not happened so far. This is probably the reason for not taking him into the cabinet along with Ajit Singh," the PRP leader said.