Hyderabad
Three Congress MLAs—G Vivek Venkata Swamy, Adluri Laxman Kumar, and Vakiti Srihari—were sworn in as ministers in Telangana on Sunday. This marked the first cabinet expansion under Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy. The oath ceremony, held at Raj Bhavan, was led by Governor Jishnu Dev Varma and attended by the CM, other ministers, MLAs, and party leaders.
The induction ended weeks of speculation about the cabinet’s growth after talks between Revanth Reddy, state Congress president B Mahesh Kumar Goud, and AICC leaders. With these appointments, the cabinet now has 15 ministers out of 18 possible seats, leaving three vacancies.
The new ministers represent social justice focus: Vivek and Laxman Kumar come from SC communities, while Srihari belongs to the backward classes. Meanwhile, Ramchander Naik, appointed Deputy Speaker, represents the ST community.
Vivek Venkata Swamy, son of Congress veteran G Venkataswamy, has a rich political background and had led the Hyderabad Cricket Association. The Congress leadership also visited some MLAs to ease disappointment among those not included in the cabinet, showing efforts to maintain party unity.