External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna at a press conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, in this July 15, 2010 file photo.S.M. Krishna, India's Minister of External Affairs, submitted a letter of resignation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday afternoon, ahead of a cabinet reshuffling this weekend, an official in his ministry said.
Mr. Krishna, 80, had been India's top-ranked foreign affairs official since May of 2009, and traveled extensively in those years, including trips to the United States, Pakistan and Myanmar. Questions were sometimes raised about the minister's health after recent meetings. He read a speech prepared for a Portuguese official at a United Nations meeting in 2011.
Mr. Krishna, who was born in Karnataka, studied at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and got a law degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. A former chief minister of Karnataka, he is expected to go back to his home state, but not to rejoin politics there, said this official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the resignation was not yet official. “I don't think the pace of a hectic campaign in Karnataka is for him†at this point, he said.
Who Mr. Krishna's replacement would be was the subject of extended speculation in New Delhi on Friday. Prime minister Singh and Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi are expected to pick a successor when they meet on Sunday to discuss the Cabinet reshuffle.
