Andhra Health Minister D L Ravindra Reddy sacked

HYDERABAD: A day after he held talks with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi over the revamp of his Council of Ministers, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy tonight removed Health Minister D L Ravindra Reddy from the cabinet for criticising government programmes.

D L Ravindra Reddy, a bitter critic of the Chief Minister, is the second minister after P Shanker Rao to be sackesd from the Kiran Kumar Reddy Cabinet.

There are indications that one or two more ministers may meet the same fate soon.

The Chief Minister, who returned from a two-day trip to New Delhi last night, forwarded to Governor E S L Narasimhan recommending the dismissal of the Health Minister, sources in the Chief Minister's Office said.

Ravindra Reddy is currently in London with his family members and is expected to return on June 4. A senior-most MLA from Kadapa district, he was inducted into the state Cabinet in December 2010 when Kiran Kumar Reddy became the Chief Minister.

However, he turned a bitter critic of the Chief Minister and openly attacked the "unilateral style of functioning" of Kiran Reddy and the schemes he launched.

The minister had openly criticised the Chief Minister for the government schemes, be it the Re 1-a-kg rice scheme, the hike in power tariff or the latest Bangaru Talli (girl child incentive scheme).

He went to the extent of exhorting people to "chase and thrash us" if the new schemes (announced by the CM) were not properly implemented.