This is the first major expansion of the three-year-old Congress ministry in the state.

Incidentally, it is also the first expansion after the six Telangana Rashtra Samithi ministers pulled out of the cabinet in July 2005.

The AP Cabinet has 24 ministers at present. No incumbent minister is being dropped for the present. The strength of the ministry will go up to 41 with Thursday's expansion.

Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, who had been 'resisting pressures' to expand the cabinet, finally gave in after the Congress high command told him not to delay the expansion any further. AICC general secretary incharge of AP affairs Digvijay Singh, while conveying the high command's permission to Dr Reddy to expand the cabinet, reportedly told him on Wednesday "why don't you finish off the task before coming to Delhi."

It may be recalled that Dr Reddy is scheduled to go to Delhi on Thursday morning to address the MPs from Andhra Pradesh who have planned to stage a dharna in Parliament to protest the refusal of Maharashtra state to suspend the work on the controversial Babli barrage project despite directives from the Central Water Commission to do so. Dr Reddy is expected to catch the flight to Delhi after the new ministers are sworn in.

According to official sources, the Chief Minister has finalized the 17-member list. The new ministers are Pilli Subhash Chandra Bose (East Godavari district), Maganti Babu (West Godavari), Mandali Buddha Prasad (Krishna), Mopidevi Venkata Ramana Rao (Guntur), Kasu Venkata Krishna Reddy (Guntur), M Hanumantha Rao (Guntur), Anam Ramanarayana Reddy (Nellore), R Chenga Reddy (Chittoor), Ms Galla Aruna (Chittoor), G Chinna Reddy (Mahboobnagar), M Mukhesh Goud (Hyderabad), R Damodar Reddy (Nalgonda), T Jeevan Reddy (Karimnagar), J Ratnakar Rao (Karimnagar), Vanama Venkateswara Rao (Khammam), Sambhani Chandra Sekhar (Khammam) and C Damodar Raja Narsimha (Medak).

Incidentally, while finalizing the modalities for the cabinet expansion, the Congress high command had directed the Chief Minister not to accommodate any members from the newly-revived Legislative Council and also to keep the first-time MLAs.

Hence, the chief minister has picked the new ministers from among those MLAs with two terms or more. One-third of the new ministers are from the politically-dominant Reddy caste while the remaining inductees are from the other upper castes, backward classes and Scheduled Castes.