TOKYO, Oct 14 (Bernama-Kyodo) -- Embattled Japanese farm minister Kazuo Yana said Wednesday he has decided to resign over controversies surrounding his past behaviour in his constituency, in a major blow to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's government, Kyodo News reported.
Yana said he had tendered his resignation to Takaichi, becoming the first Cabinet member to step down since the premier reshuffled her Cabinet in mid-September.
"I can no longer afford to disrupt parliamentary deliberations and agricultural administration," Yana told reporters at the prime minister's office in Tokyo after meeting with Takaichi.
Yana, a sixth-term House of Representatives member from Takaichi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, is known as her right-hand man on agricultural policy.
The resignation marks a setback for the prime minister, who is poised to mark a year in office later this month. Shortly before the announcement, opposition lawmakers threatened to submit a censure motion against Yana in the Senate, the upper house of Japan's parliament.
Yana has faced criticism following media reports since late September that he told supporters in his constituency in May that road budgets had been drastically cut for two municipalities whose mayors supported his rival in the February general election.
He is also reported to have provided free shuttle bus rides to his supporters in the constituency in Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo, during campaigns for past lower house elections, possibly in violation of the Public Offices Election Act.
Largely acknowledging the reports, Yana has denied any illegality in either case, saying that he had not pressed the land ministry to cut the budgets and that the bus arrangement did not constitute the provision of benefits or donations.
Takaichi, for her part, had said that she would "not hesitate" to dismiss Yana "if illegality (was) found" in connection with allegations against him.
-- BERNAMA-KYODO