In the midst of a cabinet shuffle exercise to be taken up by chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy in the near future, speculation is on over the fortune names.

It is clear that the chief minister had made up his mind to complete the exercise without further delay and put an end to the speculations doing rounds. In fact, Jagan Mohan Reddy had committed when he inducted his first cabinet in June 2019, that he would change the total cabinet after two-and-a-half years.

He said that he would go for 100 percent replacement, but things seem to be different now after three years. He is understood to have made up his mind to retain some of the ministers and have some new faces as this cabinet would be his election team.

Meanwhile, sources say that the chief minister had cleared the name of Grandhi Srinivas, who defeated Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan at Bhimavaram in 2019 elections. In fact, Pawan Kalyan was defeated at both Gajuwaka in Visakhapatnam and Bhimavaram in West Godavari districts.

Srinivas is a three-time legislator from Bhimavaram. He won for the first time in 2004 on Congress ticket and later in 2014 and 2019 on YSR Congress ticket. In 2009 Srinivas joined the Praja Rajyam Party but lost the chance to contest the elections. He later joined the YSR Congress and had won two consecutive elections since 2014. He defeated Pawan Kalyan in 2019 by a margin of 8,357 votes.

Sources say that the chief minister is in favour of taking Srinivas into the cabinet and sending Alla Nani for the party work. Alla Nani is currently the deputy chief minister holding the portfolio of medical and health.