The suspense over the expansion of Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s council of ministers has been continuing, as the latter has been dodging the same for over two months.
While the Telangana Rashtra Samithi MLAs, who are aspiring for berths in the KCR cabinet, are keeping their fingers crossed, it is the media which has been showing more curiosity than the MLAs on when KCR would expand the cabinet.
Every newspaper and every channel has been predicting different dates and KCR continues to keep them guessing.
Last week, a leading Telugu daily came up with a banner story stating that the Telangana CM would expand his cabinet on February 10, which happens to be an auspicious day because of Vasantha Panchami. The daily went on to predict who all would be there in the cabinet.
February 10 has come and gone, but there are no indications of any cabinet expansion.
Some TRS sources leaked to the media that KCR told party MLAs that he would take up cabinet expansion in another five or six days.
Already, three days have passed since the leaked report came out, but there is no such possibility as of now.
Now, the latest speculation doing rounds in the same media is that KCR would take up the cabinet expansion on February 16, a day before his birthday.
The media has chosen February 16 because the number has a curious significance: KCR has to fill up a maximum of 16 cabinet berths.
Secondly, his party is aiming at wining 16 MP seats in the coming Lok Sabha elections. And finally, he should also fill up 16 MLC seats, which have fallen vacant.
And since KCR has gone to his farmhouse, it is speculated that he is finalizing the list of cabinet ministers there. There is a belief that KCR will take all crucial decisions only at the farmhouse!
One wonders why the media has not speculated the date February 15, because one and five add up to six and KCR is fond of the number six!
