A race for a berth in union cabinet has begun in Telugu Desam party. All important Parliament members of the party have started lobbying for the berth as they are sure that Sujana Chowdary, minister of state for science and technology, may be allowed to retire from the council of ministers (CoM), after his appearance in the Nampalli Metropolitan Court as accused on May 5. Chowdary is retiring from Rajya Sabha in June.
Since, he is an accused it may not be tenable for Prime Minister to continue him in the council of ministers.
The BJP may not agree for the continuance of Sujana, as he is going to be the first minister from Modi’s government to stand before a magistrate as an accused. The matter turned to worse, when High Court, while staying the execution of non-bailable warrant, asked the union minister to appear before the court. Many in the party think this is the reason enough for the dropping of the minister after his retirement.
TDP leaders wonder as to how Sujana Chowdary did not offer to resign even for the sake maintaining decorum. Sujana Chowdary is an accused in the bank loan default case filed by Mauritius Commercial Bank.
According to party sources, three senior leaders, Garikipati Rammohan Rao (Rajya Sabha), J C Diwakar Reddy and Rayapati Sambasivarao ( both from Lok Sabha) are said to be putting pressure on party president Chandrababu Naidu.
While Naidu is now wary of nominating another businessman to CoM, the chances of JC and RS Rao getting into the cabinet look bleak. Sources are of the opinion that Naidu doesn’t want the repetition of Sujana-like headache from other businessmen.
Third man in the fray is Garikipati, a close confidante of Naidu and party’s original leader. He was the man behind the organization of Naidu’s padayatra and Mahanadu arrangements.
While JC and RS Rao have come from Congress, Garikipati is a 24 carat TDP leader. So, if Naidu wants to replace Sujana with somebody, sources said , he may prefer Garikipati. ” This will serve two purposes. One, a original product of TDP would be in Delhi . Second, a Kamma will replace another Kamma,” the sources said.
