Enviroment 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 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Another DMK leader, Minister of State for Home S
Regupathy, has been moved to the Environment Ministry in the same rank. The Prime Minister, who has decided not to have a full fledged cabinet minister for this ministry, will be looking after it.
Forty-four-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 APJ 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.