Puvvada Ajay Kumar, 54-year-old outspoken TRS MLA from Khammam, rose to the position of a minister in Telangana cabinet in just little over seven years after his entry into politics.
Though joined the ruling TRS in 2016, his political career saw a meteoric rise after his thumping victory from Khammam Assembly constituency in the 2018 election.
He was the lone TRS MLA to win from the erstwhile composite Khammam district where the ruling party had put up a dismal performance in the 2018 Assembly election, winning just one seat of the total 10 seats.
Mr. Ajay, son of CPI national leader and former MLC Puvvada Nageswara Rao, who also represented Khammam Assembly constituency twice in the past, plunged into politics by joining the YSR Congress party in 2012.
He served the YSR Congress party as district unit president for nearly one year.
He later joined the Congress in 2013 and made an electoral debut from Khammam seat on Congress ticket in 2014 electio ns.
He trounced political heavyweight Tummala Nageswara Rao in a keen tussle and became MLA for the first time in 2014.
In 2016, he joined the TRS and subsequently rose through the ranks of the ruling party by actively spearheading the party activities in the past little over three years. A gold medalist in M.Sc (Agriculture), Mr Ajay had a tryst with some enterprising grape farming ventures before foraying into politics. Well-known as the chairman of the town-based Mamata Medical, Dental and Nursing colleges, he earned wide appreciation for organising health camps and cleft lip and palate correction surgeries free of cost under the aegis of the Puvvada Foundation across the district over the past decade.
The erstwhile undivided Khammam district got a representation in the State cabinet following the induction of the two-time MLA Mr. Ajay, considered a close associate of party working president K T Rama Rao, into the ministry as Transport Minister on Sunday.
The TRS cadres burst into celebrations at the party office here and elsewhere in the district elated over the much awaited representation to the district in the cabinet.