If speculations doing rounds in various sections of media are to be believed, YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is most likely to revamp his council of ministers by Dasara festival, falling on October 15.
The speculations picked up pace after the statement of state minister for energy, environment and forests Balineni Srinivas Reddy on Saturday that the chief minister was contemplating complete overhaul of the state cabinet.
“There would be 100 per cent changes in the state cabinet,” he said.
Though he did not specifically say when this cabinet overhauling would be done, sources in the YSRC party said it would be as early as Dasara festival. If Jagan won’t be able to make up his mind by then, he might defer it by a few weeks.
“Indications are that Jagan would take up the changes in the cabinet before he embarks on his tours to districts to oversee the implementation of the welfare schemes and functioning of the village secretariats in December,” a party source said.
It is learnt Jagan has already started the exercise for the cabinet reshuffle and has started collecting feedback from senior leaders and other important persons in the party close to him.
Though Balineni hinted at 100 per cent changes in the cabinet, Jagan might retain at least three or four ministers from the present cabinet and replace the others from completely new faces.
In fact, Jagan initially thought of giving some more time to the existing ministers since they could not discharge their duties properly due to Coronavirus pandemic. But suddenly he changed his mind and decided to completely revamp his cabinet.
Sources said the reason for Jagan’s sudden decision to revamp the cabinet could be his plan to go in for mid-term elections by 2022 December or early 2023.
“Maybe, he wanted to give chance to others also before going to polls. In any case, nobody can guess what is in Jagan’s mind,” the source added.
