It appears the newly formed cabinet of Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has the stamp of his son Nara Lokesh, rather than Naidu himself.
According to highly placed sources, the tentative list of the ministers was prepared by Lokesh and Naidu when they were on the US trip last month, even before the assembly election results were declared.
Apparently, they had the confidence that the party would come to power. And Lokesh had reportedly suggested some names to his father, based on their loyalty to the party and the hard work they had put in.
Out of 24 ministers in the Naidu cabinet, as many as 10 MLAs are elected to the state assembly for the first time.
They include: Nara Lokesh, Pawan Kalyan, Mandipalli Ramprasad Reddy, Vasamsetty Subhash, T G Bharat, S Savitha, Kandula Durgesh, Y Satya Kumar, Kondapalli Srinivas and Gummadi Sandhya Rani.
Besides, eight other MLAs were elected in the past but were new to the post of ministers.
They include: Payyavula Kesav, Anagani Satyaprasad, Nimmala Ramanaidu, Vangalapudi Anitha, Nadendla Manohar, Dola Balaveeranjaneya Swamy, Gottipati Ravi Kumar and B C Janardhan Reddy.
Most of them are below the age of 50 years, which can be considered young in political field.
Sources said most of them were picked up by Lokesh and endorsed by Naidu after taking into consideration caste and regional equations.
Seniors like Kala Venkat Rao, Kanna Lakshminarayana, Ganta Srinivas Rao, Gorantla Buchaiah Chowdary, Ch Ayyanna Patrudu and Bandaru Satyanarayana Murthy from TDP and Konathala Ramakrishna from Jana Sena Party could not find a place in the cabinet.
