On Thursday, Kiran Kumar Reddy got a set of brand new vehicles -- Toyota Fortuner 3.0, in his convoy, including two with bullet proof facility and two remote jammer vehicles. The total cost of the new vehicles including the bullet proof doors and jammers, is said to be around Rs 4 crore.
This is the third time in the last seven years that the Chief Ministers were provided with new vehicles. After becoming Chief Minister, late Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy had replaced the earlier ambassador cars in his convoy with six Tata Safari cars.
In 2007, they were replaced with new black Mahindra Scorpio vehicles.
After YSR’s death in September 2009, his successor K Rosaiah did not go in for new set of vehicles, but continued with the same Scorpios, of course with changed numbers.
After the resignation of Rosaiah, Kiran Kumar Reddy took over as the Chief Minister on November 25 and has been using the same Scorpios since then. Now, he has replaced them with Toyota Fortuner 3.0 with Diesel Engine on the pretext of additional security features. The new vehicles are said to be safe in the situation of bomb attacks.
