Chhattisgarh CM drops five ministers

RAIPUR: One Union Cabinet and four ministers of state were dropped from the Raman Singh cabinet on Tuesday afternoon. The chief minister forwarded their resignations to the governor, Lt Gen (retd) K M Sheth, after second round of meeting with senior BJP leaders.
With Tuesday''s resignations, the strength of the Raman Singh cabinet has been reduced to 13 and is within the constitutional limit of 15 per cent of the strength of the Chhattisgarh assembly.
Education minister Vikram Ushendi, who is a tribal from Kanker is the lone Union Cabinet minister to face the axe. The CM immediately appointed him as chairman of the Bastar autonomous development authority and gave him the facilities of a cabinet rank minister.
The portfolio held by Ushendi has been divided and distributed between parliamentary affairs and rural development minister, Ajay Chandrakar, who has been given additional charge of higher education, and minister of state, Rajesh Mundat has been given charge of school with PWD.
Other who were dropped include Poonam Chandrakar (CM''s office), Mahesh Baghel, (tribal welfare) and Satyanand Rathiya (forest and environment). Irrigation minister Hemchandra Yadav will look after transport and finance minister Amar Agarwal has been given industries in addition. A section of BJP leadership wanted the withdrawal of home from Brijmohan Agarwal and give him education.