Tamil Nadu: Jaya drops a minister, re-inducts another

Chennai: In yet another minor reshuffle of her ministry, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa today dropped a minister, re-inducted a former minister and effected changes in the portfolios of three cabinet colleagues. [caption id=“attachment_1276445” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.[/caption] In the ministry re-cast exercise that came a day after the ruling AIADMK’s impressive victory in the Yercaud bypoll, Jayalalithaa axed K V Ramalingam, Minister for Sports and Youth Welfare and inducted R B Udhaya Kumar, MLA from Sattur assembly segment, whom she had shunted out from the cabinet earlier. Udhaya Kumar, who will be sworn-in as minister on December 11, has been given the portfolio of Youth Welfare and Sports Development Department, a Raj Bhavan release said here. According to sources, Ramalingam was shown the door by Jayalalithaa in the wake of allegations of land grabbing against him. Jayalalithaa had stripped Ramalingam of the key Public Works Department portfolio some months back and allocated Sports and Youth Welfare departments. The Chief Minister reshuffled portfolios of B V Ramana, M C Sampath and Thoppu N D Venkatachalam. While Ramana has been designated as Minister for Revenue and portfolio of Commercial Taxes and Registration held by him allocated to Samapath, Venkatachalam, has been designated as Minister for Environment. Hitherto Venkatachalam was the Minister for Revenue and Sampath, the Minister for Environment. PTI