Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge (Left)
New Delhi/Hyderabad: While Revanth Reddy of the Congress Party took oath as the Chief Minister of Telangana today, three central ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, Prahlad Singh Patel and Renuka Singh Saruta resigned from the Union Council of Ministers, with immediate effect.
President Droupadi Murmu, as advised by the Prime Minister, accepted their resignations.
Further, as advised by the Prime Minister, the President directed the following:
i. Arjun Munda, Cabinet Minister, be assigned the charge of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, in addition to his existing portfolio.
ii. Shobha Karandlaje, Minister of State, be assigned the charge of the Minister of State in the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, in addition to her existing portfolio.
iii. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State, be assigned the charge of the Minister of State in Ministry of Jal Shakti, in addition to his existing portfolios; and
iv. Dr. Bharti Pravin Pawar, Minister of State, be assigned the charge of the Minister of State in the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, in addition to her existing portfolio.
The resignation of Tomar, Patel (both from Madhya Pradesh) and Saruta (a Lok Sabha MP from Chhattisgarh who had recently contested state assembly elections and won the Bharatpur-Sonhat seat) resigned amid strong speculations of them joining the new governments in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The Bharatiya Janata Party had earlier decided that all of its 12 Members of Parliament who recently got elected to State Assemblies would quit Parliament.
Other MPs who quit are Rakesh Singh, Udya Pratap Singh and Riti Pathak from Madhya Pradesh; Kirodi Lal Meena, Diya Kumari and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore from Rajasthan and Gomati Sai and Arun Sao from Chhattisgarh. All except Meena are Lok Sabha members. Meena is a Rajya Sabha member.
Meanwhile, Revanth Reddy became the first Congress Chief Minister of Telangana, while Bhatti Vikramarka Mallu also took oath as the Deputy CM. Reddy, meanwhile, invited criticism from leaders from Bihar for his reported remark during the swearing-in ceremony that his predecessor K. Chandrasekhar Rao of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi had a “Bihari DNA”. BJP leader and former union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad demanded an apology from the new Telangana CM.
