Prakash Javadekar, Ravi Shankar Prasad quit ahead of PM Modi's Cabinet shuffle
After health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan and education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and environment minister Prakash Javadekar, who was also the spokesperson of the government, resigned from their respective departments.
Union ministers Prakash Javadekar and Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday resigned from their posts ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's major cabinet reshuffle, which indicated that the post-pandemic, pre-state elections shake-up was going to be a major one. Ravi Shankar Prasad was the minister of law and information technology while Prakash Javadekar was the environment minister. Both these big-ticket resignations came to much surprise as Ravi Shankar Prasad was at the forefront of the government's new IT rules for which the government is at loggerheads with Twitter. Prakash Javadekar's exit from this ministry has also been surprising as he was also the spokesperson of the government.
Follow all updates from PM Modi's Cabinet reshufle
Ahead of the Cabinet reshuffle scheduled to begin at 6pm on Wednesday, health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, chemicals and fertilisers minister DV Sadananda Gowda, labour minister Santosh Gangwar, education minister of state Sanjay Dhotre, minister of state for women and child development Debasree Chaudhuri, minister of state for jal shakti Rattan Lal Kataria and minister of state for environment Babul Supriyo stepped down from their posts.
Thaawarchand Gehlot who was in charge of the social justice and empowerment ministry had resigned on Tuesday and was made the Governor of Karnataka.
In a major reshuffle that will bring focus on equal representation of gender, caste and community, 36 new ministers on Wednesday took oath and seven ministers of state are being promoted.
Both Javadekar and RS Prasad announced the new IT rules for social media and digital media in February following which they issued regular statements regarding the IT rules. Under RS Prasad, Twitter lost its status of an intermediary in India as it failed to comply with the new I-T rules. Reports said there might be some organisational role inside the BJP for RS Prasad as several states will be going to the elections next year.
Get Current Updates on India News, Lok Sabha Election 2024 live, Infosys Q4 Results Live, Elections 2024, Election 2024 Date along with Latest News and Top Headlines from India and around the world.