Pondy education minister sacked

P.M.L. Kalyanasundaram

Uncertainty over the continuation of education minister P.M.L. Kalyanasundaram in the Rangasamy-headed AINRC ministry in Puducherry has come to an end with the chief minister dropping him, at long last, from the Cabinet.

Mr Rangsamy had faxed the letter to the Lt Governor and Union home minister recommending the removal of Kalyanasundaram from the Cabinet.

Oppn pressure drives Ranga to drop his No. 2

Uncertainty over the continuation of education minister P.M.L. Kalyanasundaram in the Rangasamy-headed AINRC ministry in Puducherry has come to an end with the chief minister dropping him, at long last, from the Cabinet.

Mr Rangsamy had faxed the letter to the Lt Governor and Union home minister recommending the removal of Kalyanasundaram from the Cabinet.

Secretary to Lt Governor, Udipta Ray, told that the Lt Governor, now away at his hometown of Jalandhar, in Punjab, has been informed. The letter will be sent to the Union home ministry, as per the provisions of the Union territories Act.

Mr Kalyanasundaram was inducted as minister on June 8 in the first expansion of the Cabinet, but he donned the mantle only for a little over five months since he allegedly indulged in malpractices to take the SSLC public examinations held at a private school in Tindivanam, in Villupuram district, in September.

Mr Kalyanasundaram had reportedly engaged a proxy at the SSLC examination. However, he rubbished the charges as politically-motivated and claimed that he had appeared for the exam on September 29, but could not write the exam the next day as he had to attend an official meeting.

A school dropout among the “greenhorns” in the ministry, Mr Kalyanasundaram was assigned the key portfolios of school education, college education and information technology, among other subjects. He was No. 2 in the Cabinet. Mr Rangasamy was pushed to a situation where he had to drop him from the Cabinet .

The opposition Congress and AIADMK were up in arms against Mr Kalyanasundaram continuing in the Cabinet even after the dismissal of his anticipatory bail plea by the Madras High Court on November 8.

Puducherry ministers earlier had been dropped from Cabinet on two occasions. The first was the removal of S. Ramaswamy from the Farooq-led, DMK-CPI ministry in 1973 and the second was dropping P. Kannan by the then CM P. Shanmugam in 2000 when there was a difference of opinion between the two.