Hyderabad: The focus on Assembly dissolution and early elections has now shifted to the next Cabinet meeting to be held by September 6.
A flash message sent by Chief Secretary S.K. Joshi to all secretaries and heads of departments on Sunday informing about the ‘urgent Cabinet meeting’ and asking them to send proposals for approval in the Cabinet by 3 pm on September 4, yet again fuelled speculation that the elections may be held before time.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is expected to hold the Cabinet meeting on September 5 or 6 and take a ‘crucial decision’ on early polls.
Deputy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari too confirmed that there will be another Cabinet meeting “very shortly”, in which “crucial decisions” on all important issues will be taken. Briefing the media about the Cabinet decisions after the meeting at Pragathi Bhavan, Mr Srihari said, “There will be another Cabinet meeting very soon, which will take important and crucial decisions. In today’s meeting, only administrative issues which were placed on the agenda were taken up. No issues other than those in the agenda were discussed.”
The official note sent by Chief Secretary Joshi read, “All the special chief secretaries/ principal secretaries/ secretaries to government including GAD are informed that the next Cabinet meeting will be held very shortly. They are, therefore, requested to send the Cabinet proposals duly approved in circulation for consideration of the Council of Ministers to General Administration (Cabinet) Department immediately by September 4, 2018, by 3 pm for placing the same before the Cabinet.”
This note released few hours before TRS’ public meeting on Sunday generated political heat over early polls. The note was widely shared in social media by ruling and opposition parties speculating that the CM will hold next cabinet meeting on September 6 to suit his lucky number of 6 to take a decision on dissolving Legislative Assembly and go for early polls in December along with Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.
