UPA Cabinet reshuffle: 8 new ministers inducted

The UPA on Monday inducted new faces into its Cabinet, including 85-year-old Sis Ram Ola, leaving out the young brigade to send out a message that it wants to run the government with a mixture of "youth plus experience".

Among new Ministers of State, 78-year-old Manikrao Gavit was assigned Social Justice and Empowerment while Santosh Chowdhury got Health and Family Welfare. Congress MP JD Seelam is now MoS Finance and ENS Nachiappan received the Commerce and Industry portfolio. Also read: List of new ministers inducted in the UPA Cabinet Andhra Pradesh leader KS Rao has been assigned Textiles Ministry while Oscar Fernandes got Road and Highways Ministry and Girija Vyas got Housing, Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation. "Our message is clear. Youth plus experience," Congress spokesperson Meem Afzal told CNN-IBN. Among other changes, Mallikarjun Kharge has been moved from Labour Ministry to Railways. The exit of the erstwhile allies Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Trinamool Congress, as well as the resignations of Pawan Kumar Bansal, Ashwani Kumar, CP Joshi and Ajay Maken, created vacancies in the cabinet. Bansal resigned after his relative was accused of taking money for a plum post in the Railway Board. Ashwani Kumar quit on charges of vetting a CBI report on the allocation of coal blocks. Joshi and Maken resigned over the weekend and have been given Congress party charges for the Rajasthan and Delhi assembly elections later this year. The Cabinet reshuffle comes a day after the overhaul of the Congress party apparatus in which Maken and Joshi, along with Ambika Soni and Gurudas Kamat, were brought in as general secretaries, while Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Oscar Fernandes were dropped from the party posts.