Vizag to be capital from July: YS Jagan Mohan Reddy

Vijayawada: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy for the first time announced the timeline for shifting the seat of governance from Vijayawada to Visakhapatnam. After the official agenda of the cabinet was over, Jagan announced that he would start functioning from the Port City from July. He also expressed his displeasure over the performance of some ministers and said he may have to go in for a reshuffle soon.

Sources said that Jagan may drop at least three of the ministers from his cabinet. It may be recalled that he had gone in for a major reshuffle of the Council of Ministers on April 11 last year where barring 11 senior ministers, all others were dropped. It is learnt that Jagan had received ground reports from I-PAC and other sources about the performance of each minister. While he had directed the ministers and MLAs to go from door to door and explain various welfare schemes being implemented by the government and how they had benefitted each family, some are said to be visiting the houses but they were not spending considerable time with each family to explain the activities of the government.

They were just handing over the pamphlets and moving forward.

Moreover, with the opposition onslaught against the government, Jagan does not want to take any chance and wants to ensure that YSRCP was back in the drivers' seat in 2024. Hence, he is focusing attention on the Kapu community as well as the Balija community. The idea is that even if a section of Kapus do not vote for YSRCP, that loss can be made good with Balija votes.

Now that the party is set to win a majority of the MLC seats, Jagan is likely to accommodate some of the newly elected MLCs in the cabinet. This includes Marri Rajasekhar from Palnad district. Jagan had promised a berth to him in 2019 itself. Another name that is making rounds is that of Thota Trimurtulu. Thota is a Kapu leader and has good hold over the community in East Godavari district. Though Minister T Raja is also a Kapu and from the same district, Jagan, it is said, is of the opinion that he was not able to lead the Kapus and could not effectively counter the inroads made by Jana Sena and TDP. In fact, Thota was seen being congratulated by some leaders in the Assembly lobbies on Tuesday. Another name that is making rounds is that of Kudipudi Suryanarayana, who is a Balija leader. He too would be entering the Legislative Council soon.