HYDERABAD, Sept 29: The Andhra state Cabinet reconstitution on Thursday will see the back of some non-performing ministers. Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu is likely to drop three or four ministers whose performance has been wanting and induct at least ten new faces into his ministry. There are 28 members in the Cabinet now including the Chief Minister.The swearing-in ceremony of new ministers will take place at 9.45 am in Raj Bhavan. According to indications available so far, Naidu might include in the Cabinet B V Mohan Reddy and deputy speaker N Farooq (Kurnool), P Keshav (Anantapur), M Kasi Reddy (Prakasam), M Venkateswara Rao or P Srinivas Reddy (Nizamabad) Dandu Sivaramaraju (West Godavari), E Dayakar Rao (Warangal), Buchi Maheswara Rao (East Godavari) and Devineni Ramana (Krishna).
With just one woman minister in the Cabinet now, it is likely that Naidu might induct either K Pratibha Bharati or A Annapurna Devi.
Naidu has, however, not indicated even to his close aides on the likely entrantsinto the ministry. A meeting in this regard is slated for today.
The expansion is due as the Chief Minister has been holding a large number of portfolios for a variety of reasons including election of some ministers to the Lok Sabha.
While Naidu has retained the important portfolio of power right from the beginning, other subjects such as higher education, industries, civil supplies and housing have come under his fold subsequently.
G M C Balayogi, who was handling higher education and M Rajaiah, who looked after Housing, were elected to the Lok Sabha in the mid-term polls. Civil Supplies Minister G Hanumantha Rao died last year while Basheeruddin Babu Khan (Industries) resigned from the Cabinet in the wake of TDP extending support to the BJP government at the Centre.
Naidu is no doubt unhappy over the functioning of some ministers but it remains to be seen whether he would drop all of them.
His views about the non-functioning of ministers, aired more than once in public, were vindicted in therecent ``Telugu Naadi'' -- a feedback survey in which the performance of ministers was not rated high by ruling partymen.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.