“With the blessings of people of Secunderabad and honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi I will be taking oath as the Union Minister today at 7 p.m. I seek your continued support,” tweeted newly-elected BJP MP Gangapuram Kishan Reddy on receiving the much awaited call from party president Amit Shah on Thursday afternoon.
It was evident from the beginning that Mr. Kishan Reddy would be taken into the Central Cabinet as soon as he won for the first time as MP and the BJP won a decisive majority in Parliament. The speculation was whether he would be the only one and whether he would be offered a major portfolio or he would be Minister of State with an independent charge. The last turned out to be true.
There was some chatter about ‘giant killer’ D. Arvind too getting the call after he had defeated K. Kavita from Nizamabad, it was not to be. In a way Mr. Reddy should consider himself to be lucky for having lost the Assembly polls from the Amberpet constituency, even if narrowly by a margin of little over 1,000 votes in December last.
Otherwise he would have had to be content with being an MLA for the fourth time and perhaps, someone else would have made the cut after it was decided by the central leadership to replace former Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya as party candidate from Secunderabad parliamentary constituency from where he won four times.