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Young Turks Become Part of Indian Cabinet

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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inducted seven first-timers in junior slots in his council of ministers on Sunday. The changes were necessitated by need to induct fresh blood, fill up ministerial slots vacated by two outgoing Rajya Sabha members and rid certain departments of problems caused by personality clashes.

The reshuffle-cum-expansion of once saws the exist of six ministers of state while bringing on board RS member and former CEC Manohar Singh Gill, Guna MP Juotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia and Jitin Prasada, who represents UP’s Shahjahanpur in the lower House.

V. Narayanswamy, santosh Bagrodia and Rameshwar Oraon were also sworn in as ministers of state. The seventh MoS, Raghunath Jha, is from Lalu Yadav’s RJD.

Gill has been given independent charge of the sports and youth affairs ministry that under Manis Shankar Aiyar was at loggerheads with the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), whose president Suresh Kalmadi is also the chairman of the organizing committee for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

The ministers who quit include Suresh Pachouri and M.V. Rajasekharan. The former will work full time as MP state unit chief and the latter could not be selected to the Upper House in absence of the assembly in Karnataka where elections are due to in May.

The parliamentary affairs portfolio of which P.R. Dasmunsi has been divested while retaining I&B goes to Kerala’s Vayalar Ravi, who will continue to be Cabinet Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs.

He will be assisted in the parliamentary affairs ministry MoS Finance P.K. Bansal and Narayanswamy who gets the additional charge of planning while continuing in the AICC as general secretary. Pachouri’s charge of Personnel goes to Prithviraj Chavan, MoS in the PM’s office who too has several organizational responsibilities.

When asked whether the reshuffle was his last, Singh said there was no finality in such things. In fact, some major cabinet changes might take place in May in Maharashtra where immediate action was deferred on account of the ongoing Assembly session. Highly placed sources told Hindustan Times Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh may be brought to the Centre if power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde is shifted to Mumbai.

Source:Hindustan Times

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Tags: indian olympic association, madhavrao scindia, ministers of state, organizational responsibilities, prime minister manmohan, rajya sabha