IT Minister gets the axe for criticising Cabinet colleague

CHENNAI: For the first time since he assumed office in 2017, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has dropped a minister from his council. Manikandan was relieved of the Information Technology portfolio on Wednesday, and the same was reassigned to Revenue Minister RB Udhayakumar. Governor Banwarilal Purohit accepted the Chief Minister’s recommendation in this regard.

With this, the strength of council of ministers has come down from 33 to 32. Interestingly, Manikandan’s ouster came hours after he openly criticised his Cabinet colleague Udumalai K Radhakrishnan, who is the minister for animal husbandry. The incident happened at a function held in Paramakudi to observe the National Handloom Day.

When asked a question about the Arasu Cable TV, Manikandan took a dig at Udumalai Radhakrishnan saying, “I am the minister in charge, but recently Udumalai Radhakrishnan was appointed as chairman of the Arasu Cable TV network. He is an experienced person in this business.”

“Recently, he said all cable operators with Arasu should transfer their earlier connections to the network. But, this cannot be done overnight. Radhakrishnan has been operating Akshaya Cable with over two lakh connections. He should set an example for others by transferring those two lakh connections to the Arasu network, and helping the government earn more revenue.”

Implying there is a conflict of interest, he went on the say: “I am a doctor by profession. But, if I perform a surgery while I am the minister, it would not be appropriate. After putting in 13 years as a government doctor, I became a minister after Amma (J Jayalalithaa) gave me this post. I gave up medical practice to discharge my duties as a minister.”

Responding to a question, Manikandan also alleged that the Chief Minister had not discussed with him the decision to cut the Arasu Cable TV charges.