Chiru, Botcha talk on sharing cabinet berths

HYDERABAD: Within 24 hours of the Election Commission’s green signal for Praja Rajyam Party’s merger with the ruling Congress, PRP founder K Chiranjeevi reportedly had talks with APCC president Botcha Satyanarayana on cabinet berths to PRP members in the cabinet reshuffle likely this month end.The PRP is likely to get two berths for which MLC C Ramachandraiah and MLA Ganta Srinivasa Rao (Anakapalle) are said to be the front runners.Besides Satyanarayana, deputy chief minister C Damodar Raja Narasimha met Chiranjeevi at the latter’s Jubilee Hills residence on Tuesday evening and discussed the political situation in the state and the strategies for the local body elections likely next month. Later, Botcha and Chiranjeevi had a one-on-one meeting for about 15 minutes. The APCC chief left the place without talking to the waiting media persons.It is learnt that the leaders exchanged their views on issues pertaining to induction of PRP members into the state cabinet, Congress-PRP merger meeting, High Court’s green signal for conduct of local body polls etc.Chiranjeevi later told newsmen that it was for the Congress high command to decide on the induction of PRP members into the state cabinet, including their number.With regard to the muchpublicised merger meeting, the actor-turned-politician said no final decision had been taken. However, there were two proposals before the party - having an informal merger meeting in New Delhi in the presence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi or to organise a public meeting in the state. If a formal meeting takes place in Delhi, another meeting will be held in Gandhi Bhavan, state Congress party headquarters, in the presence of Union minister and incharge of AP affairs Ghulam Nabi Azad. A final decision on this would be taken after return of Azad from abroad in a couple of days.Meanwhile, the deputy chief minister told newsmen that a discussion took place at Chiranjeevi’s residence on conducting a massive public meeting in Coastal AP to mark the Congress-PRP merger. Strategies to be adopted in the next local body polls were also discussed.