Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Wednesday resigned from the Narendra Modi government. The development comes as his Rajya Sabha tenure is ending on July 7.

Later, Union Minister R C P Singh also submitted his resignation to the Prime Minister, a day before his term was ending.

With the end of Naqvi's tenure in Rajya Sabha, the Bharatiya Janata Party will have no Muslim representation in Parliament.

Other incumbent Rajya Sabha MPs from the saffron party whose tenure came to an end in June and July are Syed Zafar Islam and MJ Akbar. Islam's tenure ended on July 4, while Akbar retired on 29 June.

BJP has 301 members in the Lok Sabha, but none of them is Muslim. The BJP had fielded six Muslim candidates in the 2019 general elections, but all of them lost the polls. In the 2014 polls, all the seven candidates also lost the elections.

Former bureaucrat and once a confidant of Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar, Singh resigned on his birthday, one year after joining the Union Cabinet from his party's quota. The Prime Minister had wished him in the morning.

With their term as Rajya Sabha MPs set to end on Thursday, both ministers submitted their resignations to fulfil the constitutional obligation as they will cease to be parliamentarians from Friday. After Naqvi, there will be no Muslim minister at the Centre and the BJP will have no Muslim MP among its nearly 400 Members of Parliament.

First Published:Jul 6, 2022 4:58 PM IST