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MDMK Ministers put in papers

By Our Special Correspondent

The MDMK leaders, Gingee N. Ramachandran (left), and M. Kannappan, talking to mediapersons after tendering their resignation from the Union Council of Ministers to the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in New Delhi on Tuesday. — PTI

NEW DELHI DEC. 30. M. Kannappan and Gingee N. Ramachandran, both belonging to the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), today resigned from the Union Council of Ministers. The Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, forwarded their resignations to the President for acceptance.

According to a Rashtrapati Bhavan release, the President has accepted the resignations. Mr. Kannappan was Minster of State for Non-Conventional Energy Sources and Mr. Ramachandran was Minister of State for Textiles.

The two Ministers met the Prime Minister this morning at his residence and handed over their letters of resignation, as per the decision of the MDMK to part company with the National Democratic Alliance. No attempt was made to make the Ministers rethink their resignations, as the MDMK was deemed to be only following in the footsteps of its senior partner in Tamil Nadu, the DMK, whose Ministers had earlier put in their papers.

The MDMK became the fifth partner to go out of the Vajpayee Government; besides the DMK, those who have left the ruling coalition include the National Conference, Ajit Singh's Lok Dal and Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Shakti. Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress has been periodically in and out of the Government.

Today's resignations have added to the pressure on the Prime Minister to undertake one more reshuffle of the Union Cabinet. Mr. Vajpayee is expected to attend to this demand after his return from the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) meeting in the first week of January 2004.

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