Vajpayee Carries out Major Cabinet Reshuffle

Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh of India swapped portfolios Monday as Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee carried out a major reshuffle of his Cabinet.

The reshuffle is the seventh and the largest of Vajpayee's government since it took office in 1999.

Defense Minister George Fernandes said that Prime Minister Vajpayee had appointed Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh as his new finance minister.

"The finance minister is my very good friend Jaswant Singh," Fernandes said, adding that Sinha will now head India's foreign office.

In a reshuffle of the cabinet, Jana Krishnamurthy, who resignedas the BJP president, was inducted into the ministry with a cabinet rank.

President K.R. Narayanan administered the oath of office and secrecy to Krishnamurthy at a ceremony in the Presidential Palace.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister L.K.Advani and several Union ministers were present on the occasion.

Former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma and noted film actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha also took oath as cabinetministers.

Minister of State Balasaheb Vikhe Patil, who has been elevated to the cabinet rank, was also sworn in.

Sources said Shatrughan Sinha will be the new health and familywelfare minister. Sahib Singh Verma has been appointed social justice minister while Jana Krishnamurthy will take charge of law,justice and company affairs.

Balasaheb Vikhe Patil, who was elevated to the cabinet rank, gets heavy industry portfolio, which was lying vacant after Manohar Joshi became the Lower House speaker.

PMK's N.T. Shanmugham has been made minister of state with independent charge.

Eight ministers of state were sworn in including Basangouda R Patil, Sanjay Paswan, Shripad Y Naik, Vinod Khanna, Nikhil Chaudhary and S Thirunavukarasar of BJP.

The others were Shiv Sena's Anant Gangaram Geete and A. K. Murthy of PMK.

A total of 12 ministers were either inducted or promoted under the reshuffle, designed to revive the electoral fortunes of Vajpayee's multi-party government and the BJP.

Earlier, the much-speculated induction of Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee failed to materialize as Vajpayee elevated Minister of State Balasaheb Vikhe Patil to cabinet rank to fill the vacancy caused by the election of Shiv Sena representative Manohar Joshi as Lower House Speaker.

Ahead of his massive reshuffle plans, Ministers of State ManekaGandhi, V. Dhananjaya Kumar and Munni Lal were asked to quit and their resignations were accepted by President K.R. Narayanan alongwith that of cabinet ministers M. Venkaiah Naidu, Arun Jaitley and C.P. Thakur.

(Xinhua News Agency July 2, 2002)