If Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has his way, Kidari Sravan Kumar, son of slain Araku MLA Kidari Sarveshwar Rao, will be inducted into the state cabinet soon.
Soon after returning his from US trip, Naidu went straight to Araku to call on the family members of Sarveshwar Rao and ex-MLA Soma, who were shot dead by the Maoists in the last week of September. He promised to take care of the interests of children of both the families.
Particularly, Naidu was learnt to be very much impressed by Sravan, an engineering graduate from IIT.
He discussed with his senior colleagues and proposed that the young man could be taken into the cabinet and groomed into a politician.
This would not only send positive signals among the tribals, who were agitated over the inaction of the police in providing security to the slain MLA, but also secure support from the youth.
In any case, Naidu has been contemplating undertaking a minor expansion of the cabinet.
He could have done it last month itself but deferred it due to sudden demise of his brother-in-law and TDP politburo member Nandamuri Harikrishna. After that, there were no good days for expansion of cabinet.
Now, reports from the power corridors indicate that Naidu might expand the cabinet during Dasara festivities.
He was planning to take a minority and now, he can induct a tribal into the cabinet. Though Sravan is neither an MLA nor an MLC, he can continue as a minister for another six months.
In any case, there would be elections in the next six months and in the meantime, there would be MLC elections in February/March.
Sravan can be made an MLC or can be fielded directly as an MLA from Araku in place of his father.
