Smriti Irani
In a Cabinet resfhuffle, Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed Smriti Irani as the Information and Broadcasting Minister and gave the portfolio to Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore. Rail Minister Piyush Goyal was given the additional charge of Finance Ministry till the recovery of Arun Jaitley, who underwent a successful kidney transplant operation at Delhi’s AIIMS on Monday.
Meanwhile, SS Ahluwalia has been assigned the portfolio of MoS in Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology and relieved of his charges of MoS in Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation. Alphons Kannanthanam has been relieved of charge of MoS in Ministry of Electrionics and Information Technology.
Irani, whose nearly one-year tenure in the I and B Ministry was mired in controversies, was replaced by her deputy Rathore who has been made the Minister of State with Independent Charge, according to a Rashtrapati Bhavan communique.
The reshuffle comes a day before the Karnataka assembly election results. This is the second time that Irani has been removed from a key ministry as she was earlier shifted out of the HRD Ministry to the relatively low-profile Textile Ministry. She remains the Textile Minister.
The communique said Railways Minister Goyal will "temporarily" handle the Finance and Corporate Affairs ministries till Arun Jaitley recovers from his kidney transplant.
It said S S Ahluwalia has been relieved from the charge of Minister of State in Drinking Water and Sanitation Ministry and assigned a new portfolio of Electronics and Information Technology, the communique said.
Alphons Kannanthanam has been relieved as Minister of State in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. He continues as Minister of State for Tourism.
In July last year, Irani had assumed the charge of Information and Broadcasting Ministry after M Venkaiah Naidu had resigned following his nomination as NDA's vice presidential candidate. She had courted various controversies including the latest one last month on a notification relating to fake news.
The I and B Ministry had issued an order last month with provisions of punishing journalists found involved in generating fake news. The order was widely criticised by a large section of the media which called it a brazen attempt to curb press freedom. It was later withdrawn on the directive of Prime Minister Modi.
(With PTI inputs)
