Bharatiya Janata Party Andhra Pradesh unit president Daggubati Purandeshwari, who won the Lok Sabha elections from Rajahmundry parliamentary constituency with a huge majority of over 2 lakh votes on Tuesday, is most likely to be inducted into the Union cabinet.
Purandeshwari, who held a meeting with the party leaders at her office in Rajahmundry on Wednesday, is leaving for New Delhi on Thursday. She would meet the top leaders of the party including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and J P Nadda and stay back in Delhi for the NDA parliamentary party meeting on Friday.
According to sources, Modi reportedly assured that she would be taken into the cabinet. In all probability, the new Central cabinet might take oath on Saturday or Sunday.
At the same time, Telugu Desam Party led by N Chandrababu Naidu is also expected to join the Modi cabinet, as the party has 16 MPs and is the second largest alliance partner in the NDA after the BJP. Party sources said Naidu might ask for four berths this time.
In the first NDA government in 2014, the TDP got two berths – one cabinet minister post and a minister of state post. Senior leader P Ashok Gajapathi Raju was inducted as the Union Civil Aviation Minister, while Y S Chowdary was made the MoS for science and technology.
This time, the TDP might ask for two cabinet berths and two MoS posts with important portfolios like petroleum and roads and highways, which would benefit the state. But Naidu would not pressure for the same and might leave it to the discretion of the Prime Minister.
Earlier, there were reports in a section of media that Naidu might ask for the Lok Sabha Speaker post as part of bargaining. When the TDP was part of the NDA for the first time during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime in 1999, it insisted on the Speaker post and finally got it for senior TDP leader G M C Balayogi.
This time, too, the TDP chief might ask for the Speaker post, the reports said, but the TDP leaders have denied any such possibility as most of the elected party MPs are new faces without much experience.
