With a Reddy as Chief Minister and a Dalit as his deputy, the Telangana Congress appears to have resolved internal conflicts to put together a caste diverse cabinet which included two Dalits, one Adivasi, three Reddys, one Velama, one Kamma, two OBCs and one Brahmin. This included two women and no Muslims in a state where the community’s population is 12 percent of the total. None of the Muslims fielded by the party won, although there is talk that Feroz Khan, who lost from Nampally constituency in Hyderabad, could be inducted in the cabinet through a nomination in the Legislative Council.
Along with party supremo Revanth Reddy taking oath as Chief Minister, Madhira MLA and ex-Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Bhatti Vikramarka Mallu, who belongs to the Mala Scheduled Caste, will be the Deputy Chief Minister. He is the most powerful Dalit leader in the Telangana Congress and his name for the position was doing rounds for many days.
The speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar belongs to the Mala Scheduled Caste and C Damodar, who was sworn in as a minister, belongs to the Madiga community. Damodar Rajanarasimha earlier served as the Deputy Chief Minister of the undivided state of Andhra Pradesh.
The new ministers also include turncoats from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) such as Palair MLA Pongulati Srinivas Reddy as well as the Kamma leader and Khammam MLA Tummala Nageshwar Rao who switched to the Congress just before the elections.
Manthani MLA D Sridhar Babu, whose father D Sripada Rao is a veteran Congressman, is the lone Brahmin in the cabinet which features several leaders from other privileged social groups. This includes Kollapur MLA Jupally Krishna Rao from the Velama caste, Nalgonda MLA Komatireddy Venkata Reddy, Huzurnagar MLA Uttam Kumar Reddy and Palair MLA Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy from the Reddy caste. '
The politically powerful and land owning Reddy community, which is estimated to be just over five per cent of the state’s population, not only has four members in the cabinet including the CM but also forms a crushing majority in the 119 member assembly cutting across party lines. Other names of senior leaders like Huzurnagar MLA and ex-party chief Uttam Kumar Reddy and Nalgonda MLA Komatireddy Venkat Reddy were also expected in the list, given that their names were also doing rounds as contenders for the top post of Chief Minister. More names will be included as the cabinet is expanded.
Over half the Congress MLAs from the non-reserved seats belong to the Reddy community. Revanth’s rise to the top and his leadership of the government is also seen as a restoration of the traditional power equation in the state.
Aside from the expected names, the inclusion of Mulugu MLA Danasari Anasuya(Mulugu) from the Gutti Koya Adivasi community has become a reason for celebration not just among the state’s Scheduled Tribes who form nearly 10 percent of the population. Known to her supporters as ‘Seethakka’, Danasari was once a gun-toting guerrilla with the underground Maoist party.
It is to be seen if Revanth functions out of the Secretariat or from the Chief Minister’s swanky camp office called the Pragati Bhavan. After winning the elections on December 3, Revanth said the camp office, where his predecessor K Chandrashekar Rao mostly worked out of, will be renamed to ‘Ambedkar Praja Bhavan’