Kishan Reddy - The Sole Representative of The Telugu States In Modi Cabinet

New Delhi: BJP MP from Telangana G Kishan Reddy, who was sworn-in as a Minister of State, is a leader who rose through the ranks. The BJP leader won the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat in Telangana by a comfortable margin.

Profile:

Kishen Reddy, who started his political career in 1977 as an ordinary worker with the Janata Party, had served as president of BJP in undivided Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and also as national president of BJYM, BJP's youth wing.

He also functioned as the party's floor leader of Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly.

Born in 1960 in neighbouring Ranga Reddy district, Kishan Reddy was inspired by Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan and RSS leaders before he plunged into public service.

After working with Janata Party as an activist, he joined the BJP when it was formed in 1980. Reddy's growth in the saffron party was gradual and he was appointed as the president of BJYM in 2002 when the party was in power at the Centre.

Reddy formed the World Youth Council Against Terrorism (WYCAT), an apolitical organisation, when he was the president of BJYM.

He organised a World Youth Convention under the auspices of WYCAT in New Delhi in which delegates from over 50 countries participated.

He conducted a 'Seema Suraksha Jagran Yatra' with the objective of expressing solidarity with the people living in border areas.

Reddy contested Assembly polls for the first time in 2004 (from Himayatnagar in Hyderabad) and got elected. His work won him laurels though he was the only MLA for his party then.

After delimitation of constituencies, he was subsequently elected to the Assembly from Amberpet constituency in the city in 2009 and 2014.

He, however, lost the Assembly elections held in December 2018, the first in Telangana after its formation.

With sitting Lok Sabha member and former Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya being denied the ticket, Kishan Reddy was chosen by the BJP to contest from Secunderabad in the recent held Lok Sabha polls.

Reddy also worked for social causes, including well being of children suffering from heart ailments. His effort, along with others, made the then government to come up with a scheme to help such children.

He headed the Telangana Home Guards Association and undertook agitations, seeking equal treatment, respect and improvement in their living conditions.

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AP has no representative in Modi government

With none from Andhra Pradesh included in the new union council of ministers led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the state does not have a representative in the central government perhaps for the first time.

The sole representative of the state in the Modi-led NDA-I, Suresh Prabhu, has been omitted in the new council of ministers sworn in Thursday. He is the lone parliamentarian of the Bharatiya Janata Party from the state.

The BJP did not win any of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the recent general elections.

In 2014, the then ruling Telugu Desam Party was an ally of the BJP and two of its MPs P Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Y S Chowdary found place in the Modi government.

They too had resigned in March last year after the TDP snapped ties with BJP over the demand for special category status for Andhra Pradesh.

Since then, Prabhu, elected to Rajya Sabha from the state in 2016, was the lone Union Minister from Andhra Pradesh.

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