Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan's brother K Naga Babu will join the state Cabinet, Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president N Chandrababu Naidu said on Monday, December 9.
Naga Babu is an actor and film producer besides being the elder brother of Pawan Kalyan and younger brother of megastar Chiranjeevi. He had actively campaigned for the party in the recent elections as the general secretary of Jana Sena.
The TDP had named two candidates for bye-elections to Rajya Sabha and left one seat for its alliance partner BJP, so it decided to accommodate another partner Jana Sena in the state Cabinet.
The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) headed by TDP has 164 MLAs in the 175-member Assembly. The TDP has 135 members while Jana Sena and BJP have 21 and 8 seats respectively.
The fourth minister from Jana Sena would be Naga Babu, who is popularly known as Nagendra Babu. As Naga Babu is not a member of the Assembly, the coalition may choose to nominate him to the Legislative Council in order to pave the way for his induction in the State Cabinet.
As of now, the ministers from Jana Sena in the Chandrababu Naidu-led Cabinet include Jana Sena president Pawan Kalyan, Nadendla Manohar and Kandula Durgesh.
The State Cabinet can have a maximum of 25 members. Chandrababu Naidu and 23 ministers had taken oath on June 12. The TDP had inducted three ministers from Jana Sena and one from BJP. One vacancy was left for Jana Sena.
The TDP had reportedly offered one Rajya Sabha seat to Jana Sena but Naga Babu was keen to become a minister. After leaving the Rajya Sabha seat for BJP, Chandrababu Naidu decided to include Naga Babu into the Cabinet.
Naga Babu has been working with Pawan Kalyan ever since he floated Jana Sena in 2014.
Both had earlier actively worked for Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) floated by their eldest brother Chiranjeevi in 2008. However, the party came a cropper in 2009 polls and two years later Chiranjeevi had merged it with the Congress party.
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