Union Cabinet ministers Smriti Irani and Jyotiraditya Scindia have been assigned additional charge of minority affairs and steel ministries respectively, in addition to their existing portfolios.
Following the resignations of Union ministers Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Ram Chandra Prasad Singh, Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani and Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia have been handed over additional charge of minority affairs and steel ministries.
Both Naqvi and Singh submitted their resignations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, a day before the completion of their Rajya Sabha terms.
The President of India, as advised by the Prime Minister, has accepted the resignations of Shri Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Shri Ram Chandra Prasad Singh from the Union Council of Ministers, with immediate effect, under clause (2) of Article 75 of the Constitution,” a press communique from the Rashtrapati Bhavan said.
Naqvi’s resignation came amid rumours that the BJP was actively considering someone from the minority community as its candidate for the post of Vice President. He had met both PM Modi and BJP president JP Nadda earlier in the day.
With the resignation of Naqvi, who was also the Deputy Leader of Rajya Sabha, the BJP will have no Muslim MP among its 395 Members of Parliament. Naqvi was among the three BJP Muslim MPs whose terms ended during the recent round of Rajya Sabha polls to 57 seats across 15 states, but none of them were renominated by the party.
Singh, a former bureaucrat and once a confidant of Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar, resigned on his birthday, one year after joining the Union cabinet on his party’s quota.
