Jayalalithaa reshuffles Cabinet, drops minister

In a minor reshuffle of the Cabinet and party ranks, chief minister and AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa on Wednesday dropped C Ve Shanmugam from the ministry and stripped him off a key party post. Shanmugam, who was part of earlier cabinet reshuffles also, was dropped as commercial taxes and registration minister by Governor K Rosaiah on the advice of Jayalalithaa, a Raj Bhavan communique said.
Government chief whip and Sankarapuram MLA, P Mohan was inducted into the cabinet as minister for rural industries, including cottage and small industries, hitherto held by M C Sampath. Environment minister B V Ramanaa has been designated as minister for commercial taxes and registration. Sampath is the environment minister. School education minister N R Sivapathy will additionally hold the portfolio of law, courts and prisons, personnel and administrative reforms and prevention of corruption. Social welfare minister B Valarmathi has been handed additional charge of nutritious noon meal programme, it said. Meanwhile, Jayalalithaa removed Shanmugam as district secretary of the party's Villupuram (North) unit, replacing him with Dr R Lakshmanan. Two more secretaries, G Senthamizhan, South Chennai (South), and P Vetrivel North Chennai), both MLAs, were also removed from their respective posts, Jayalalithaa said in a party statement. -->