Hyderabad: Six-time Telangana Rashtra Samithi MLA and former agriculture minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy was unanimously elected as the Speaker of the newly constituted state assembly in Telangana on Friday.
Reddy was formally declared elected as the Speaker in the assembly by pro-tem speaker Mumtaz Ahmed. His name was proposed by TRS president and chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao and supported by TRS MLAs KT Rama Rao and T Harish Rao, Congress MLA Gandra Venkata Ramana Reddy and a few All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen or MIM MLAs.
After the ceremony, KCR, as the Telangana chief minister is popularly called, addressed the House and thanked them for ensuring the unanimous election of the Speaker. “As the agriculture minister, Srinivas Reddy implemented many schemes for the farming community. All states continue to follow schemes like the Rythu Bandhu and Rythu Bheema that were initiated by him,” he said, as he lauded Reddy for his contribution to the Telangana movement.
Srinivas Reddy was born on February 10, 1950, to a middle-class agricultural family in Pocharam village. An engineer by profession, Reddy turned to politics in 1977 and joined the Telugu Desam Party. In an illustrious political career, the six-time legislator served as Agriculture Minister in KCR's earlier cabinet. He was re-elected to the Assembly from the Banswada constituency in Nizamabad district in December's elections.
Reddy has also served as a minister in the cabinet of N Chandrababu Naidu in undivided Andhra Pradesh. He quit the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in 2011 to join the TRS, which was then fighting for separate statehood to Telangana. He played a key role in the implementation of several farmer-welfare schemes under KCR's last government. He is fondly called “Laxmi putrudu,” which means the son of goddess Lakshmi, by KCR.
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