PTI
New Delhi, May 15: Environment Minister A Raja was on Tuesday made the new communications and information technology minister in place of Dayanidhi Maran, who was forced by the DMK to resign, in a minor reshuffle of portfolios by PM Manmohan Singh.
Another DMK leader, minister of state for home S Regupathy, has been moved to the environment ministry in the same rank. The PM, who has decided not to have a full-fledged cabinet minister for this ministry, will be looking after it.
Fortyfour-year-old Raja is a lawyer by profession and is in his third term in Lok Sabha. He was elected from Perambalur reserved constituency.
A Rashtrapati Bhavan communique here said that on the advice of the prime minister, president A P J Abdul Kalam has accepted the resignation of Maran from the council of ministers with immediate effect.
Maran was forced by the party to resign in the wake a family divide triggered by a survey carried by Dinakaran newspaper, owned by Maran's elder brother Kalanidhi, that resulted in violence in Madurai leading to loss of three lives.
Earlier reports: