Union Minister of Commerce & Industries Suresh Prabhu has been allotted Civil Aviation as an additional portfolio following the resignation of Ashok Gajapathy Raju from the Union Cabinet.

Raju belonged to the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the ruling party in Andhra Pradesh which has Chandrababu Naidu as its chief-minister. TDP announced its decision to part ways from the BJP-led NDA after it openly expressed its dissatisfaction over the BJP-led Centre’s denial of the long-pending demand for according ‘special status’ to Andhra Pradesh.

Y.S. Chowdary was the Union Minister of State for Science, Technology & Earth Sciences and Raju was the Civil Aviation Minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Cabinet.  After the TDP decided to part ways with the BJP, Naidu said that he would ask his party MPs to put in their papers from the Union Cabinet.

The President has accepted the resignation of Chodwary and Raju. Soon after Raju resigned, the Civil Aviation portfolio was allotted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as an interim arrangement. The portfolio has now been given to Minister for Commerce & Industry Suresh Prabhu, as per a communiqué issued by Rashtrapati Bhawan.