india

Updated: Sep 09, 2019 01:19 IST

After a nine-month gap, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao expanded his 12-member cabinet on Sunday by inducting six ministers, including his son K T Rama Rao and nephew T Harish Rao.

The ministers were administered the oath of office and secrecy by Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, who was also sworn in on the same day by high court chief justice Raghavendra Singh Chouhan at the Raj Bhavan in Hyderabad.

Apart from Rama Rao and Harish Rao, the other ministers who took the oath include Sabita Indra Reddy, Satyavathi Rathod, Gangula Kamalakar and Puvvada Ajay Kumar. With this current expansion, the strength of the ministry has risen to 18.The cabinet expansion took place a day ahead of the budget session of the assembly, scheduled to begin from Monday.

Rao’s son KT Rama Rao and his nephew and senior TRS MLA T Harish Rao had served as ministers in the first TRS-led government in the state between 2014 and 2018, while Sabitha Indra Reddy was home minister in the previous Congress government in united Andhra Pradesh.

Maheswaram constituency MLA Reddy and MLC Rathod are the first women ministers in the state cabinet since the formation of Telangana in June 2014. Of them, Reddy was elected on a Congress ticket from Maheshwaram constituency in the December 2018 elections, but later defected to the TRS along with 11 other Congress MLAs.

K Chandrasekhar Rao was sworn in as the chief minister of Telangana for the second successive term on December 13, 2018, along with home minister Mohammad Mahmud Ali. The chief minister expanded his cabinet by inducting 10 more ministers in the second phase on February 19 this year, 67 days after he formed the government.