YSR Congress party leader and former MP Modugula Venugopala Reddy is most likely to be appointed as the special representative of the Andhra Pradesh in New Delhi shortly.
Modugula, who lost the recent Lok Sabha elections from Guntur in the hands of Telugu Desam Party candidate Galla Jayadev with a slender margin, will be given the cabinet rank with all the necessary perks.
He will take up the state government’s pending issues with the Centre from time to time.
In fact, YSRC president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy first appointed his party general secretary and Rajya Sabha member V Vijay Sai Reddy as the Andhra Pradesh government’s special representative in New Delhi on June 22 with all facilities.
However, a couple of days ago, the Jagan government cancelled the appointment of Sai Reddy as there were objections from the Centre to it.
Reason: the state government’s special representative in Delhi is an office of profit since it holds the cabinet rank with all perks.
As per the rules, Sai Reddy cannot be given any official posting of profit, as he is holding the position of an MP. Moreover, he is also the parliamentary party leader of YSRC.
If he was to be continued in the post of special representative of the government with cabinet rank, he will be liable for disqualification from Rajya Sabha. So, he was compelled to give up the official post.
As a result, Jagan has reportedly chosen Modugula, who also has a lot of clout in Delhi as he had been MP in the past. He had been in the TDP for a quite long time, before defecting to the YSRC in February this year.
But he is a known fighter for the rights of the state and was a strong opponent of the bifurcation of combined state.
He was even beaten black and blue by the Congress MPs during the passage of bifurcation bill in Lok Sabha.
Though he was elected as an MLA from Guntur (West) in 2014, by defeating Kanna Lakshminarayana, TDP president and then chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu did not acknowledge his services and give him any cabinet post.
Realising that he had no future in the TDP, he defected to the YSRC, but lost the Lok Sabha elections by a whisker.