Governor N D Tiwari administered the collective oath to all ministers, including six women, in the Durbar Hall at a simple ceremony sans the usual fanfare. A somber mood prevailed as the tragic death of the Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was fresh in the minds of those taking oath for a second time in less than four months.
Ahead of the visit of technical experts from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to probe the crash of the helicopter carrying late Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others, the site atop Pavurallagutta hillock has been surrounded and secured by a 30-member security team from the Greyhound force.
At 8:30 on Thursday morning, an Indian Air Force helicopter, that had been up in the air for less than one hour, spotted the wreckages of the chopper that went missing a day ago. Within two hours of that, the bodies of all the five people who were on board were found.
These photographs were taken minutes before Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy embarked upon the fatal journey from old Begumpet Airport at 8.35 am on Wednesday to Chittor district.
"The chief minister's helicopter has been located atop a hill 40 nautical miles, 73 kilometres east of Kurnool" This was the message everyone was waiting for since Wednesday when Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's chopper went off the radar.
Prime Minister Dr Mammohan Singh has expresses his condolences on the tragic and untimely demise of the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy. In his message to the late leader's wife, Vijaya Laxmi, Dr Singh said that it was a personal loss and described the chief minister as a natural leader who was loved by the common man.
In November last year, too, he had a miraculous escape when the AW 139 helicopter he was returning from a trip to Mahbubnagar developed a major technical snag midair
The massive search operation, to locate the missing helicopter of Andhra Pradesh Chief MinisterY S Rajasekhara Reddy, resumed at 6 am on Thursday morning, with three special aircraft and five helicopters. Atmakur, a small town in the Nallamalla forest area, has become the nerve centre of the operation as hundreds of personnel from various forces, including the state police and paramilitary, reached the place to comb the forest area.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in the assembly polls on Thursday has put the party on a stronger wicket for the election for the post of President expected later this year.
Dr Kumar says it's not just the question of his safety or survival but that of 'my precious big cats'.
Maintaining that Y S RajasekharReddy's regime made land allotments for employment generation purposes, Kadapa member of Parliament Jaganmohan Reddy has asked why the Central Bureau of Investigation did not look into the allotment of lands made during the previous Telugu Desam Party rule.
'Gehlot is right now doing things, which are not appreciated by the Gandhis.' 'The Gandhis have realised that their writ does not run in Rajasthan, therefore they have deflected the issue to Kharge.'
The YSR Congress is all set to wrest power in Andhra Pradesh, with the party on course to secure a landslide win, leaving the ruling Telugu Desam Party way behind in the assembly elections.
Counting began at 8 am under multi-tier security cover. At first, postal ballots will be counted and then EVMs opened.
YSR Congress MP Goddeti Madhavi has declared assets of just about Rs 1 lakh whereas the BJP's Pragya Singh Thakur, at 4th poorest, is worth Rs 4.44 lakh.
It has been virtually a ten-year wait that's coming to a happy end for the 47-year-old leader, who nurtured the ambition of becoming chief minister soon after his father's death in September 2009.
The decision of some key regional parties like the Biju Janata Dal, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Aam Aadmi Party to skip a key opposition meet called by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the presidential poll has cheered the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as it believes that their absence has only highlighted the faultlines and one-upmanship among its rivals.
Political observers are keen to see if the BJP will now be guided by its more firmly entrenched ideological dominance in picking a face solidly identified with its core planks, or if it will choose a person tilted more to its electoral calculations. Or, whether its pick will be an ode to its core supporters or a outreach to relatively new groups of votaries.
Mamata Banerjee's sights are not on the next month's Presidential election. She is focusing on another election that will take place in 2024.
Murmu's vote share is now likely to go past 61 per cent, while it was earlier estimated to be around 50 per cent at the time of her nomination.
The Congress may stand a better chance in the assembly polls if it followed the 'Himachal model', suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
The NDA's combined parliamentary and state-level committed Presidential votes number around 12,000 fewer than a majority.
Counting of votes for the bypolls in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand will be taken up on Sunday.
With the Biju Janata Dal backing the National Democratic Alliance's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu, the vote share of the ruling dispensation has now crossed 50 percent, virtually paving the way for her election as the first tribal President and the youngest too.
"There are other factors as well that led to the crash which we have explained in our report. But there was no failure of the helicopter (Bell-430) engine. Similarly, the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) contained no clues about the alleged conspiracy theory in the crash," committee members H S Khola and M R Reddy told newpersons.
The helicopter, which crashed last September claiming the life of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others, was "probably not airworthy", but this was not a contributing factor to the accident, an inquiry has found.
Vijayalakshmi, widow of the late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, was on declared elected unopposed from Pulivendula Assembly seat in Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh. Election observer Manish Moudgil said Vijayalakshmi was elected unanimously from Pulivendula assembly constituency.
While the ruling party blamed unnamed forces behind the arson, all opposition parties hit out at the Jagan Mohan Reddy government over its "gross failure" in controlling the situation.
Deputy Inspector General V V Lakshmi Narayana led the 10-member team, including Central and state forensic experts, which visited first time the crash site in the dense Nallamala forests in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh.
Chief Minister K Rosaiah, Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu and Praja Rajyam chief Chiranjeevi were among the top leaders who paid homage to late Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy on Friday night. Speaking on the occasion, Rosaiah said, "Reddy had a unique personality. He always kept his word and his leadership qualities made people admire him. No surprise that he never lost an election in his long political career since 1978."
'Vital clues' have been collected by the high-powered committee of Directorate General of Civil Aviation, from the helicopter crash site in the dense Nallamalla forest range in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh on Thursday, official sources said.Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others were killed when their helicopter crashed in Nallamalla forest area on September 2.The five-member DGCA expert team is led by R K Tyagi.
The state government has also set up a two-member expert committee to investigate the crash, Home Minister Savita Reddy informed media persons in Hyderabad.
The autopsy reports of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others killed in the chopper crash will be handed over to CB (CID) and Directorate of Civil Aviation probing the mishap.
'The way he had his finger on the pulse of individuals was great. Besides, the state had a buoyant economy during his tenure. The rain gods also stood by him, unlike in the case of his predecessor.'
The Crime Investigation Department of the Andhra Pradesh police has launched its own probe into the death of Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others, who were killed when the Bell-430 helicopter they were travelling in crashed at Nallamalla forest in Kurnool district on Thursday.The CID will try to find out the answers to a host of questions ranging from why an old helicopter with a history of snags was chosen for the chief minister when a new one was available.
Had the pilot of late Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's helicopter turned west instead straying 18 kilometres east of the flight path, the chopper might not have crashed or even if it had been encountering problems, could have been crash landed in paddy fields, a senior police official who was part of the team and has a lot of experience serving in the region said.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday formally announced the death of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others in a helicopter crash.The wreckage was found by Air Force helicopters at 8.30 am on a hillock, which is 8 to 9 km from Atmakur, he said."The bodies are still lying on the hillock and all efforts are being made to retrieve them. I don't know how long the process will take," said Chidambaram.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's helicopter has been traced, an Air Force official stated on Thursday morning."We have located the helicopter. It is on top of a hill. It is located at a distance of 40 nautical miles east of Kurnool," an IAF official told mediapersons on Thursday.He added that the IAF had already sent two helicopters to the area, which were looking for a place to land. "But it is on top of a hill, in a jungle, so it is difficult," he said.
Creating a stir in the political circles, the film star-turned-politician and member of Lok Sabha of Telangana Rashtra Samiti, Vijayshanti, on Friday met the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy.
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