HYDERABAD: An emergency meeting convened by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao at his farmhouse in Erravelli on the city outskirts on Saturday created a lot of buzz in political, bureaucratic and media circles.
It was for the first time that the Chief Minister had convened a meeting of this scale with ministers and officials at his farmhouse. Usually, these meetings are called at Pragathi Bhavan, the official residence-cum-camp office, at Begumpet. Besides, the meeting was called at a short notice, at 10 am for the 1 pm meeting.
All ministers made it to the meeting except three — K.T. Rama Rao who left for an official trip to the US, S. Niranjan Reddy, who is in Maharashtra and Puvvada Ajay Kumar who is in Khammam.
This set off speculation, sometimes wild, over what could be happening at the meeting. Some said it was for early polls, or a Cabinet reshuffle. Or even that Chandrashekar Rao may name his son K.T. Rama Rao as the Chief Minister’s face for 2023.
The meeting lasted for three hours from 1 pm, time enough for more speculation. Poll strategist Prashant Kishor had submitted a report to the Chief Minister stating that the performance of 40 per cent of TRS MLAs including ministers was ‘unsatisfactory’ and that they should be replaced.
It is also rumoured that all top officials and all TRS leaders were called in because there were complaints of poor delivery of welfare schemes leading to anger among people. It all died down at about 5 pm when the Chief Minister’s Office said the meeting was meant to discuss the relaunch of the paddy procurement agitation.
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