Ministers shrug off Kirans pep talk

HYDERABAD: Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Tuesday gave a pep talk to his Cabinet colleagues in a bid to refurbish the sagging image of his government.His forceful arguments on the need to present a united face, however, seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. Sources said the Chief Minister, who had returned from Delhi after extensive talks with senior Congress leaders, including party chief Sonia Gandhi, regarding a rejig of his Cabinet as well as the State Congress, took pains to impress upon his team the dire need to set aside their differences.At the end of it, though, one minister summed it up in one sentence: “It was just a routine affair..there’s nothing new about it.” A woman minister simply laughed off a query on whether Kiran Kumar Reddy was inspiring or boring.At the meeting, Kiran Kumar Reddy advised his ministers to confine their differences to the four walls of his office, in an obvious reference to the recent “turf war” between Endowments Minister J Krishna Rao and Information and Public Relations Minister DK Aruna.Kirshna Rao in fact did not turn up for the meeting.“If you try to settle scores in public, it will do a lot of damage to the image of the government and the party,” the Chief Minister told them and urged them not to give an opportunity for others to talk ill of the government.But, sources told Express, none of the ministers present had opened their lips.The Chief Minister also reportedly told them that his government had the full backing of the Centre and indicated that both Chevella- Pranahita and Polavaram projects would soon get national status.Pointing at the increasing public perception of a divided Cabinet, he reportedly said, “there is a need for all of us to work collectively to build the party’s image. Collective effort is the need of the hour. We are not strangers.”