Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, who led India's COVID fight for over 18 months now, has resigned ahead of Wednesday's cabinet reshuffle. Harsh Vardhan's resignation comes amid widespread criticism against the Central government's lack of preparedness to handle the second wave of COVID that adversely affected India and led to millions getting infected in the past two months.
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Apart from Harsh Vardhan, a slew of other ministers have also tendered resignations on Wednesday prior to the massive overhaul of Modi's Council of Ministers. Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar, Education Minister Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Minister of State for Education Sanjay Dhotre, and Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister D. V. Sadananda Gowda have also resigned. Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Babul Supriyo has also been asked to step down.
Pokhriyal, who tested positive for COVID-19 on April 21, was admitted to AIIMS in June again following post Covid complications. He has resigned from his post citing health reasons. The former Uttarakhand chief minister took charge as the HRD Minister in May 2019. Dhotre, who represents Akola constituency of Maharashtra also took charge as MoS for Education, Communications and Electronics and Information Technology, in May 2019.
Besides being the chemicals and fertilizers minister in the Narendra Modi government, Gowda has also held portfolios like Railways, Law, Statistics and Programme Implementation.
The list is expected to get longer as names of ministers who have tendered resignations are coming out even at the time of publishing of this article.
