Bengaluru: Minister Ravi quits cabinet after bagging BJP general secretary post

Bengaluru: Adhering to the 'one-man one-post' norm, Karnataka Minister for Tourism, Kannada and Culture C T Ravi resigned from the cabinet post on being appointed national general secretary of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), according to sources on Sunday.

"Ravi submitted his resignation letter to State Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa at the latter's residence on Saturday night," a party official said. Ravi, 53, is a four-time legislator from Chikkamagaluru Assembly segment, about 240 km northwest of Bengaluru in the southern State.

The party's national president J P Nadda appointed Ravi as one of the five national general secretaries on September 26 as a major reshuffle of the organisational posts. Ravi is likely to visit New Delhi on Monday to attend the reorganised party's meeting. Besides Ravi, B L Santosh from the State continues to be the party's national secretary. Party's Lok Sabha member from Bangalore South Tejasvi Surya was appointed as national president of the BJP Yuva Morcha and party's Rajya Sabha member from the State Rajeev Chandrashekar as part of the BJP's team of national spokespersons.

Ravi's resignation, after its acceptance by State Governor Vajubhai Vala, will result in one more vacancy in the 34-member State Cabinet, in which six posts have not yet been filled since the party returned to power in July 2019. With the Election Commission announcing on September 29 by-elections to 2 Assembly segments - RR Nagar in Bengaluru and Sira in Tumakuru districts in the State on November 3 and their results on November 10, Cabinet expansion is expected to take place only after Deepavali in mid-November.

As many as dozen legislators of the party are vying for the 7 Cabinet posts. Among them are former Congress and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) rebels who defected to the BJP and have been elected or nominated to the State Legislative Council recently. The defectors are M T B Nagaraj from Congress and A H Vishwanath. Another Congress defector - Munirathna - is likely to contest as BJP candidate in the November 3 by-poll from RR Nagar.