Controversial Jairam Ramesh was on Tuesday elevated to Cabinet status and shifted from the high-profile Environment Ministry and Veerappa Moily replaced by Salman Khursheed as Law Minister in a substantive reshuffle of the Union Council of Ministers, in which several ministers continued to hold additional charge of some key portfolios.
Significantly, after carrying out the much-talked about exercise, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said this was the last reshuffle before the next Lok Sabha elections although he made it clear that he has kept two slots vacant for Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam whose two ministers resigned under a cloud.
Singh did not touch the 'big four'-- Finance, Home, Defence and External Affairs-- and also kept four ministries, including Telecom and Civil Aviation, as additional charge.
Ramesh, who stoked controversies by his handling of environment issue with his proactive approach, gets Rural Development from where Vilasrao Deshmukh has been shifted to Science and Technology and Earth Sciences.
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