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In a triple bonanza, Khammam district got three ministerial berths in the new State cabinet.
Of the total five Assembly seats in the district, the Congress party made a clean sweep bagging all of them in the just concluded Telangana Assembly elections.
The ruling BRS drew a blank in Khammam district, known as the traditional bastion of the Congress party.
Senior Congress leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, who had emerged triumphant from the Madhira Assembly seat for the fourth consecutive term in the recent Assembly elections, has been made Deputy Chief Minister and assigned the key Revenue portfolio.
Mr. Vikramarka’s State-wide 109-day padayatra titled “People’s march” covering 1,350 km spanning 750 villages in 17 districts earlier this year, energised the rank and file of the Congress that helped catapult the grand old party to power in Telangana.
Khammam MLA Tummala Nageswara Rao and Palair MLA Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy have been inducted into the State cabinet.
Both had quit the ruling BRS and joined the Congress party a few months before the recent Assembly elections.
They emerged victorious from Khammam and Palair seats, trouncing the BRS’s sitting MLAs Puvvada Ajay Kumar and K Upender Reddy respectively, in a high-stakes electoral battle.
Mr Nageswara Rao has been allotted the Roads and Buildings portfolio. He held the same portfolio during his stint as minister in the BRS government during 2014-18.
Mr Srinivas Reddy has been given the key Irrigation portfolio in the new State cabinet.
The three legislators took oath at the swearing-in ceremony along with Chief Minister Revanth Reddy in Hyderabad on Thursday.
