Chandrababu Naidu Meets Modi before Formation of Cabinet; YSR Congress MP Joins TDP

Keeping a lot of expectations in mind for his state Seemandhra, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president Nara Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday met Narendra Modi, who is slated to take oath as the new Prime Minister of India on Monday.

Naidu met Modi at Gujarat Bhavan and the meeting lasted for 30 minutes. Parleys for the Union government formation under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is underway, and Naidu is understood to have sought as many berths as possible for his party's MPs in the government.

The AP Chief Minister-designate also met BJP president Rajnath Singh at the latter's residence. However, Naidu did not divulge any details about the meetings to the media.

Naidu will remain in Delhi on Sunday to attend Modi's swearing-in ceremony on 26 May. He will return to Hyderabad on the same day.

Back when NDA convened its meeting to elect Modi as leader, Naidu had said that TDP will join Modi's government at the Centre. TDP is now expecting more than four cabinet berths in the government. Senior TDP leader Ashok Gajapati Raju is surely expected to make it to the union cabinet of ministers.

TDP is forming the government in the residual AP/Seemandhra and has won 16 Lok Sabha seats in the state, though the party won only one MP from Telangana. It is understood that there are a lot of aspirants for ministerial berths among the TDP MPs.

The party already has six MPs in the Rajya Sabha. And now, the 16 MPs, who won the recent election, have been added. Among the 16 MPs, 12 are newly entering the Lok Sabha.

JC Diwakar Reddy, P Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Thota Narasimham are senior leaders from Andhra Pradesh, who have been elected as TDP MPs. They have rich experience as MLAs and ministers at the state level. While Raju has been a committed TDP leader since the beginning and a six-time MLA, Reddy and Narasimham joined TDP just before the last Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

Rayapati Sambasiva Rao, another prominent leader, also joined TDP from Congress on the eve of last election. He is a six-term MP and is seen as a contender for a berth in the Central ministry.

N Siva Prasad, elected from Chittoor parliamentary constituency, is expected to be made a minister in the Union government under the Dalit quota. Prasad is a second-time MP and has also served as a minister in the TDP government.

Meanwhile, SPY Reddy, a prominent leader from Rayalaseema and an MP of YSR Congress, joined TDP on Sunday. He stated that he joined TDP to serve his constituency better as TDP is an alliance partner of NDA, which is set to form the government at the Centre on 26 May.