Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' resigns as education minister

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the Cabinet reshuffle 2021, the Union minister for education Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ and the minister of state for education Sanjay Dhotre resigned from the Union Cabinet on Wednesday.

Pokhriyal, former chief minister of Uttarakhand, cited health reasons for stepping down. He took charge as the education minister in May 2019. He is a member of Parliament from the Haridwar constituency. Dhotre, who represents the Akola constituency of Maharashtra also took charge as MoS for education, communications, and electronics, and Information technology in May 2019 as well.

The resignation has come amid the Prime Minister’s cabinet reshuffle scheduled to take place today. Along with Pokhriyal, Santosh Gangwar who held the labour ministry portfolio has also resigned. Debasree Chaudhuri, who serves as the minister of state for woman and child development has also stepped down.

NEP 2020

Based on a detailed performance review by PM Modi and top leaders, a few more ministers are likely to be removed from the cabinet, NDTV reported. Pokhriyal’s last announcement before stepping down was of the JEE Main 2021 exam dates. The last two sessions of the engineering entrance exam had been postponed due to COVID-19 and candidates had been eagerly waiting for the new dates.

The National Education Policy 2020 was also finalised on Ramesh Pokhriyal’s watch and cleared by the Union Cabinet in July 2020. His ministry also issued a host of guidelines and directions related to continued learning during the coronavirus pandemic. Pokhriyal had himself contracted COVID-19 and was hospitalised in early June.

On Monday, several leaders from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party were summoned to the capital for the cabinet reshuffle expected to take place today, NDTV further reported.

This is the first revamp of the council of ministers since PM Modi started his second term in May 2019.

(With inputs from PTI)

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