Telangana faces in Modi govt 3.0: BJP state chief Kishan Reddy, fiery leader Bandi Sanjay Kumar set to be Union ministers

Two-time MPs Gangapuram Kishan Reddy (63) and Bandi Sanjay Kumar (52) – from Telangana’s Secunderabad and Karimnagar respectively – are set to be inducted as Union ministers on Sunday, when the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government’s council of ministers take oath.

Kishan Reddy, the president of the BJP’s Telangana unit, was also the Union minister for Tourism, Culture, and Development of North Eastern Region in the second Modi Cabinet.

After the creation of Telangana state in 2014, Reddy was the first BJP state president from 2014 to 2016, and then was given the post again in 2023, taking over from Bandi Sanjay Kumar.

Reddy is also a three-time MLA — having won twice from Amberpet Assembly constituency in 2009 and 2014. In the December 2018 Assembly polls, he suffered a big defeat at the hands of the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) candidate, but five months later, was elected as MP from Secunderabad.

Hailing from Timmapur in Rangareddy district, Reddy has a diploma in tool design, and has been interested in politics since his student days, when he joined the Janata Party. He later joined the BJP and was the first state treasurer of the BJP unit in undivided Andhra Pradesh in the early 1980s. Later, he also became state secretary of the BJP Yuva Morcha.

He was first elected as MLA from Himayatnagar in Hyderabad in 2004, which was later merged in Khairtabad constituency.

In this year’s Lok Sabha election, Reddy defeated Congress’s Danam Nagender by 49,944 votes in Secunderabad.

Firebrand BJP leader Bandi Sanjay Kumar, who was the president of the party’s Telangana unit from May 2020 to July 2023, was elected as an MP in both 2019 and this year.

The BJP National General Secretary has been known as a staunch critic of the