KS Rao takes over as Union Textile Minister

Businessman-turned-politician Kavuri Sambasiva Rao (KS Rao),

who was on the verge of resigning his Lok Sabha seat last October for being ignored in the previous cabinet reshuffle has made an entry into the union council of ministers lapping up the Textiles ministry portfolio, after almost three decades of parliamentary run.

69-year-old Rao, a strong advocate of united Andhra, is opposed to separate Telangana over which the state has been seeing a lot of tensions. In October last, the five-time MP was almost sure that the Congress leadership will induct him in the cabinet when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went for a reshuffle of his council of ministers. Rao now represents Eluru seat. But the leadership's decision to exclude him from the ministry upset Rao who then made his displeasure public and announced his decision to quit from Lok Sabha. However, the leadership managed to retain him.

Born on October 2, 1943 in Dosapadu in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, Rao got his engineering degree from Regional Engineering College in Warangal. Rao, who has business interests in real estate and construction, was first elected as an MP in 1984 and was re-elected in 1989, 1998, 2004 and 2009. He had represented Machilipatnam seat earlier.

Supposed to be the last reshuffle before 2014 general elections, apart from KS Rao, eight new faces were inducted into Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s council of ministers on Monday.