Senior Bihar Minister quits

Senior Bihar Minister quits
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

PATNA, MAR 12: An embattled RJD President Laloo Prasad Yadav received a major setback today when senior party leader and Bihar Finance Minister Shanker Prasad Tekriwal resigned from the Rabri Devi cabinet.

Tekriwal, who had been speaking the language of the dissidents for quite some time now, but had not formally joined them, sent in his papers to both the Chief Minister and Governor V C Pande, requesting its immediate acceptance.

The Finance Minister's resignation came barely an hour before the special RJD legislature party meeting convened by the Chief Minister to discuss growing dissidence in the party.

Announcing his resignation at a crowded press conference at his official residence 15 minutes after replying to the debate on the budget in the assembly, Tekriwal said, "I quit the cabinet as all my demands for a qualitative change in the functioning of the government went unheeded".

Replying to a question, he said, however, he would continue in the RJD and pursue his agenda of change in the government's leadership.

Tekriwal said he would have resigned even earlier, but since it was he who had presented the budget "it was my responsibility to conclude the process....and now that it is over I thought it was time I put in my papers".