Telangana Cabinet Expansion After Local Bodies Polls in July

With the conclusion of polling for Lok Sabha elections in Telangana on May 13, the focus in the Congress circles has shifted to the expansion of the five-month-old A. Revanth Reddy Cabinet. While the buzz was that Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy would expand the Cabinet after the Lok Sabha election results in June, party sources ruled out such a possibility until rural local body polls are over in June or July.

Elections to three-tier panchayat raj institutions — gram panchayats, mandal parishads and zilla parishads — are key to the power pyramid of the state and are likely to be held in the last week of June or the first week of July. As per Constitutional norms, the size of Telangana Cabinet should not exceed 18 including the Chief Minister. Currently, there are 12 members in the Cabinet at present including the Chief Minister. This allows the Chief Minister to induct six more ministers in the



Cabinet.

There is no representation for old Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Nizamabad and Adilabad districts in the cabinet. Sources said the party high command will assess the performance of ministers and MLAs based on the results in the Lok Sabha polls and local bodies polls. “There are chances of dropping or reshuffling portfolios of a few ministers based on their performance and MLAs who secured better results for the Congress in the Lok Sabha and local bodies polls will be rewarded with cabinet berths,” the sources explained..

The Chief Minister is also planning to hold the Legislative Assembly session in July-end or early-August to present a full budget for 2024-25. The Assembly passed vote-on-account or interim budget for 2024-25 in February in view of Lok Sabha polls. The CM plans to expand the cabinet before the Assembly session.