Thiagarajan divested of Finance portfolio, given low-profile IT portfolio

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin reshuffled the portfolios of some of the ministers after T.R.B. Raaja was sworn in as a minister on Thursday. State Senior Finance Minister PTR Thiagarajan was divested of his portfolio and given a low-profile IT portfolio.

It was previously reported that he would be stripped of his portfolio and that Industry Minister Tangam Tedras would be in charge of finance.

As expected, TRB Rajaa will replace Thangam Thenarasu in the high-profile industries ministry.

State information minister Saminathan has been given the Ministry of Tamil development department.

Mano Thangaraj is the new Diary development minister instead of S.A. Nasser who has been dropped from the cabinet.

PTR on his official Twitter account posted, "I am grateful that CM@mkstalin has now assigned me the portfolio of Information Technology -globally the #1 industry for investment and job-creation today. We know that technology shapes the future."

Notably, Thiagarajan was in the dock after an audio leak in which the speaker - alleged to be PTR - was heard saying that Stalin's son Udayanidhi Stalin and his son-in-law Sabareesan were making huge money after the Stalin government assumed office.

Thiagarajan denied this and added that this was an artificial intelligence-created audio tape mimicking his voice. He had met the Chief Minister and conveyed his position.

However, Stalin was not willing to forgive and wanted to clip the wings of the high-flying minister in his cabinet.

With inputs from IANS