C P Joshi gets additional charge of Railways

Road Transport and Highways Minister C P Joshi will hold additional charge of the key railways ministry after President Pranab Mukherjee accepted the resignation  of Trinamool Congress’ Mukul Roy, official sources said on Saturday.

Though this is only an additional charge for  Joshi and could be changed during a cabinet reshuffle in the offing, government sources said the key inftrastructure ministry has come back to the Congress after a gap of 17 years. The last Congressman to be railway minister was C K Jaffer Sharief from 1991-1995.

Roy had submitted his resignation to the prime minister on Friday obeying the directive of party chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who decided to withdraw support to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) over the government’s economic reforms.

In UPA-I (2004-09), the ministry was headed by Lalu Prasad of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and  the Trinamool held the portfolio since the UPA-II came to power in 2009. Banerjee was minister until she left to head over the West Bengal government after her party won the 2011 state assembly polls and was succeeded by Dinesh Trivedi and then Mukul Roy.