MP cabinet reshuffle: 10 ministers go

BHOPAL, May 18: Chief Minister Digvijay Singh today sacked ten members of his cabinet, promoted four ministers of state to the cabinet rank ...

BHOPAL, May 18: Chief Minister Digvijay Singh today sacked ten members of his cabinet, promoted four ministers of state to the cabinet rank and inducted 11 new faces into his council of ministers 8211; four in the cabinet rank and seven as ministers of state.

They were administered oath of office and secrecy by Governor Bhai Mahaveer at a hurriedly convened function at Raj Bhavan this afternoon. Some of the new entrants were away in their constituencies and had to rush to Bhopal on receiving urgent messages.

Still, eight persons could not make it. Two of them 8211; Jalam Singh Patel and DP Dhritlehere 8211; are ministers of state listed for promotion to the cabinet rank. Surendra Bahadur Singh of Sakti and Chatru Ram Baghel have been appointed cabinet ministers while Basori Singh Masram, Kesri Chaudhary, Tejilal Saream and Nobul Kumar Verma figure in the list of the new ministers of state. All of them will be sworn in at a later date.

Those promoted to the cabinet rank today are Chanesh Ram Rathia, SatyanarayanSharma, Ravindra Chaube and Ram Niwas Rawat. Ashok Samble, Subhash Kumar Sujotia, Bhagwan Singh Yadav and Motilal Dave were inducted as cabinet ministers today.

MLA from Betul, Ashok Samble had contested the Lok Sabha election from Betul constituency this year and lost to the BJP candidate. Those who were sworn as ministers of state today are: Deepak Saxena, KP Singh, Hukum Singh Karada all three with independent charge, Deevan Chandrabhan Singh, Ram Kumar Patel, Prabhu Singh Thakur and Raj Kumar Patel. All seven of them, as well as Bhagwan Singh Yadav cabinet rank were elected first time to the Assembly in 1993.

Distribution of portfolios will be effected later on. Those being removed from the cabinet are: Deputy Chief Minister Pyarelal Kanwar who holds revenue portfolio, BR Yadav agriculture and cooperatives, Rajendra Kumar Singh Industries, commerce and environment and Narbada Prasad Prajapati energy. All four of them have been sacked because of the corruption cases registered with thespecial police establishment SPE of the Lokayukta against them.

Six ministers have been removed because of the poor performance of the Congress party in their Assembly constituencies during the 1996 and 1998 Lok Sabha elections. They are Satyadev Katare food and civil supplies, Mukesh Nayak school education, Ratnesh Solomon labour, Yadvendra Singh excise, Jaswant Singh commercial taxes and Pushpraj Singh who was minister of state for school education.

Story continues below this ad

The last and the only expansion of his council of ministers was made by Digvijay singh on December 25, 1995 when 15 new faces were inducted.