Reshuffle in state after centre rejig

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Though there has been no word from Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy regarding his series of meetings with several Congress leaders in New Delhi on Wednesday, party sources said that AICC president Sonia Gandhi advised him to wait for the reshuffle in the Union Cabinet before making any changes in the state Cabinet.

The Congress president, however, agreed to the appointments for the nominated posts in a phased manner.

Kiran Kumar Reddy, who left for New Delhi on Wednesday morning, had meetings with AICC general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad, senior party leader Motilal Vora, Union ministers Sushilkumar Shinde and M. Veerappa Moily apart from Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and President Pranab Mukherjee before returning. Sources said that Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, who had a 45 minute meeting with AICC chief Sonia Gandhi at her residence on Wednesday evening along with Ahmed Patel, briefed her on the political situation in the state and also put forth his proposals for a reshuffle of the state Cabinet.

They also discussed the Telangana statehood issue though nothing apparently came out of it.

Later, members of the Congress core committee including finance minister P. Chidambaram and state Congress affairs incharge Ghulam Nabi Azad along with two other leadres met separately in the “war room” and discussed at length the Telangana issue.

However, when Chidambaram wanted to brief Reddy on the proceedings, the latter had left for Hyderabad.

While a section of state Congress leaders stationed in New Delhi say that the Central government will announce its decision on Telangana after the changes in the Union Cabinet, they are equally confused about when the changes are going to be affected.

Some of the leaders close to the Chief Minister said that the party leadership had approved the list submitted by Reddy and advised him to effect the changes in a phased manner. Reddy’s followers also said that there was no threat to his leadership till the 2014 elections as was being spread by some of the Telangana Congress MPs.