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 which became vacant after Trinamool Congress' Mukul Roy submitted his resignation, which has been accepted by President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday.

It is reported that this additional portfolio would be near Joshi until Prime Minister does reshuffling in his cabinet soon.

At present Railway Ministry is the only portfolio, handed as an additional liability to any cabinet minister.

This crucial amd major 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 Friday following 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.

--With IANS Inputs--