Raja appointed communications and IT minister
May 15, 2007 - 6:20:23 PM
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Azhagiri's supporters ransacked the newspaper office last Wednesday and in the violence that ensued three employees were killed.
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By IANS,
[RxPG] New Delhi, May 15 - Environment and Forests Minister A. Raja was Tuesday appointed communications and information technology minister following the resignation of his DMK party colleague Dayanidhi Maran from the council of ministers.
Maran's resignation was accepted by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam after the United Progressive Alliance - government's key ally DMK authorised its head and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi to seek his withdrawal from the union cabinet.
Reallocating ministerial portfolios following Maran's resignation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointed S. Regupathy, minister of state for home, as minister of state for environment and forests.
The prime minister will hold the overall charge of the ministry.
Maran, who had an excellent run as communications and IT minister, was forced to resign after the party adopted a resolution against him Sunday in the wake of an intra-family feud.
Maran's exit from the cabinet was triggered by publication of an opinion poll in his family-run Tamil daily Dinakaran, which said 70 percent of the people in the state favoured Karunanidhi's younger son M.K. Stalin as his likely political heir and only 2 percent had voted for his elder brother M.K. Azhagiri.
Azhagiri's supporters ransacked the newspaper office last Wednesday and in the violence that ensued three employees were killed.
It is believed that Maran called up the state's home secretary and ordered him to act against the culprits allegedly threatening him with dire action. Since the home portfolio is with the chief minister himself, Maran's call was seen as an act of indiscipline and insubordination by Karunanidhi, his grand uncle.
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