New Delhi:
Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal will get additional charge of the Law Ministry and Road and Transport Minister C P Joshi will handle the Railways portfolio. They will replace
Ashwani Kumar and
Pawan Kumar Bansal who resigned as Union ministers yesterday.
Mr Sibal and Mr Joshi will be in charge of these portfolios in addition to their existing ministries of Telecom and IT and Road and Transport respectively.
Mr Joshi had held temporary charge of the Railways last year after Trinamool Congress leader Mukul Roy resigned when his party quit the UPA coalition.
Sources also say there is speculation that there could be a reshuffle of the Union cabinet in near future.
Mr Bansal, who became the first Congressman in 17 years to be appointed Railways minister in October last year, came under tremendous pressure to quit after his nephew Vijay Singla was arrested for allegedly accepting bribe to organise a plum posting for a senior official in the Railways. The CBI is expected to interrogate him soon to follow up on allegations of his involvement in the case.
Mr Kumar landed in trouble for having made deletions in a CBI report on its coal allocation investigations meant for the Supreme Court. The court had severely reprimanded both the CBI and the government for Mr Kumar's actions.
Mr Bansal and Mr Kumar, politicians from Punjab and seen as close to the PM, submitted their resignations yesterday, a few hours after Congress president Sonia Gandhi met Dr Manmohan Singh at his residence. The government had backed the two leaders smeared by scandal for several days, but Mrs Gandhi was reportedly not in favour of either of the two continuing in the government.
The Opposition accuses Mr Kumar of trying shield the Prime Minister. It holds Dr Singh accountable for the coal scam because he held the coal portfolio for a portion of the period in which coal block allocations are being investigated.
Speaking to reporters today, Mr Kumar said his resignation did not imply any wrongdoing. "I resigned only to stop unnecessary controversy," he said and insisted that his "conscience remains clear."