Andhra Pradesh Cabinet: CM Chandrababu Naidu names Pawan Kalyan as deputy, Nara Lokesh gets IT

Two days after taking oath as part of the new Andhra Pradesh government, Janasena Party head and superstar Pawan Kalyan has been appointed as the Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, with Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu naming his son and Mangalagiri MLA Nara Lokesh the Information and Technology Minister.

In addition to the Deputy Chief Minister post, Kalyan has also been tasked with the Panchayati Raj, Rural Development & Rural Water Supply portfolio, as well as the Environment, Forest, Science & Technology one.

Nara Lokesh has been given the Human Resources Development and RTG ministries in addition to the IT portfolio.

Telugu Desam Party chief Naidu took oath as the Chief Minister on June 12, with his Cabinet taking oath alongside him in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party leaders including Amit Shah and Nitin Gadkari.

Other big names in the Cabinet include Anitha Vangalapudi, who has been given the Ministry of Home Affairs and Disaster Management, while Dharmavaram MLA Satya Kumar Yadav got the Health Ministry and the Family Welfare & Medical Education one. P Narayana has been allotted one of the key departments- Municipal Administration- which would be responsible for the development of the Amaravati capital region.

Full list of Andhra Pradesh Cabinet Ministers:

Pawan Kalyan's rise to the top
Pawan Kalyan's meteoric rise to the #2 spot in Andhta Pradesh's government is thanks to the 100% hit rate of the Janasena in the Assembly elections, with the actor-politician's party winning all of the 21 seats it contested.

Shortly after the Assembly and Lok Sabha election results were announced on June 4, Prime Minister Modi introduced Kalyan in a meeting of NDA MPs, saying, "Yeh Pawan nahi hai, aandhi hai (he is not air, but a storm)."

The Pithapuram MLA is widely credited with stitching the NDA alliance of TDP, BJP and Janasena together, which swept up 164 of the 175 Assembly seats in the state and 21 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats, in the process routing the incumbent YSRCP government.

Kalyan, the 55-year-old Janasena founder, began his political journey with his older brother Chiranjeevi who founded the Praja Rajyam Party in 2008. He handled Praja Rajyam's youth wing 'Yuvarajyam' but the party fell flat in the 2009 elections, eventually being merged with the Congress. Kalyan later founded his own party in 2014.

Though he did not contest the 2014 elections, he extended outside support to the NDA alliance of TDP and BJP, providing some tailwind to their triumph. The Tollywood actor contested the 2019 elections but lost all seats except one, the Razole Assembly seat. In the 2024 polls, however, he played a key role, garnering a tsunami of votes for the NDA alliance in the state.