Till a few days before the expansion and reshuffle of the Chandrababu Naidu cabinet last Sunday, Vijayawada MLA Bonda Umamaheshwar Rao was pretty confident that he would get a berth in the cabinet.
For, Naidu used to praise Bonda a lot for his aggressive approach, commitment to the party and also his ability to take on the opposition.
Bonda used to be the face of the TDP in all the media debates and used to effectively present the party’s stand on all forums. He even got the indications that he would be taken into the cabinet.
However, when the list of new ministers came out, it was a big disappointment for Bonda as his name did not figure in it.
Naturally, he was upset and even went to the extent of resigning from his assembly membership, if not party. Before doing so, he wanted to know the reason why he was denied the cabinet berth.
So, when Naidu called him and pulled him up for giving resignation threat, Bonda came to know the actual reason for the disappearance of his name in the list.
The chief minister told him that Bonda’s misbehaviour with Transport Commissioner N Balasubrahmanyam and his gunmen a few days ago was the reason for denying him the berth.
It may be mentioned that Bonda had accompanied Vijayawada MP Kesineni Nani, owner of Kesineni Travels, to the transport office and manhandled the gunman of the commissioner, while Nani used foul language against the officer. This has sent bad signals to the people and Naidu became furious. He pulled up both Nani and Bonda and forced them to tender apology.
Since induction of Bonda into the cabinet would bring bad name to the party, Naidu dropped his name at the eleventh hour, party sources said.
So, Bonda lost the chance because of Kesineni!
