Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who would not like to hold back his views, on Friday praised those colleagues who are performing well and chided others.

What message he would like to convey by saying so? Many feel, a mild ‘warning’ or ‘caution’ to those complacent and non-performing to pull up socks as the state goes into election mode in couple of months from now

Naidu had announced the names of the four best and worst performers in his Cabinet. The Chief Minister, while making the announcement at the party coordination committee meeting also came down heavily on “laggard” Ministers and asked them to take a leaf out of the book of the top performers.

Nakka Ananda Babu (Social Welfare), N Chinarajappa (Home), K Kala Venkata Rao (Energy) and N Amarnath Reddy (Industries) got a pat on their backs, even as Kollu Ravindra (Youth Empowerment), Siddha Ragahva Rao (Environment and Forest), Ganta Srinivasa Rao (Human Resource Development) and Pithani Satyanarayana (Labour) received an earful.

Naidu handed over bouquets to the best and reserved brickbats for the bottom four. He is learnt to have threatened the Ministers of being removed unless they stepped up their game immediately. “You may have to make room for others at the time of elections,” he said, hinting that they may not even get party tickets.

The best minister honour went to Nakka Ananda Babu for his active involvement in departmental affairs and coordination with officers in the execution of government schemes.