Finally, the Election Commission has shown some soft corner towards Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
On Monday evening, the Election Commission gave its approval to Naidu to hold the cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
A letter to this effect was sent to Andhra Pradesh chief secretary L V Subrahmanyam and chief electoral officer Gopala Krishna Dwivedi.
The EC, however, made it clear that the cabinet meeting should be confined only to the points mentioned in the agenda such as steps being taken for mitigation of drinking water crisis, drought conditions in the state, employment guarantee programme implementation and the damage done to north coastal Andhra due to cyclone Fani.
A communication from the chief minister’s office said Naidu would hold the cabinet meeting at 3 pm on Tuesday. Prior to that, he would have a meeting with officials of various departments to discuss the agenda points.
It will be the last cabinet meeting for Naidu to take any official decisions in this tenure. If he comes back to power again after the declaration of results on May 23, he will continue as the chief minister and can hold cabinet meetings every month.
In the morning, Subrahmanyam had more than an hour meeting with Naidu, reportedly to discuss about the proposed cabinet meet and other issues.
Naidu suggested that the if the EC did not give any approval to the cabinet meeting by evening, he would simply hold a review meeting with officials to discuss the issues pertaining to the drought and Fani.