Kerala Water Resources minister Mathew Thomas resigns
Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 26 : Kerala Water Resources Minister Mathew T Thomas, a nominee of the Janata Dal (Secular) in the CPI(M)-led LDF government, on Monday submitted his resignation to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
The move comes after the JD(S), a key partner in the LDF, Friday decided to replace Thomas with Chittur MLA K Krishnankutty.
Thomas handed over the resignation letter to Vijayan at the latter's official residence, Cliff House, this morning. "I have handed over my resignation letter to the chief minister. I am an MLA now," Thomas told reporters here.
On his performance as a minister in the last two and half years, Thomas said he cannot say he was fully satisfied, but was happy as he could take up various activities during his tenure in the water resources department.
Asked if he would stake claim for the post of the state party chief, Thomas said he had not put forward any such demand and had not listed any conditions for his resignation.
Thomas said he had functioned as the state president of the party and had helped it to grow. The party would not split and would remain in the LDF, he said.
The JD(S), headed by former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, has three MLAs in the Kerala Assembly. The national leadership, which had met at Bengaluru last week, had decided to replace Thomas with Krishnankutty.
Senior JD(S) leaders from the state including Krishnankutty and C K Nanu, the other MLA, met Gowda and held discussions in Bengaluru after which the national leadership had announced the decision to replace Thomas.
The two factions led by Thomas and Krishnankutty have been at loggerheads for quite some time over the party's lone ministerial berth.
Krishnankutty is likely to be sworn in as minister Tuesday. The 13th session of the Kerala Assembly is also beginning Tuesday.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
