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Summary The finance portfolio is currently being handled by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram was switched to the finance portfolio on Tuesday in a reshuffle that also saw the power minister promoted as a massive electricity failure struck the country.The presidents office announced that Chidambaram would begin his third stint as the head of the finance ministry, where he will be charged with re-firing Indias spluttering economy. He will be replaced at the home ministry by Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who spent Tuesday tackling an unprecedented electricity outage that saw supplies fail in half the country, affecting more than 600 million people.There has been a small reallocation of portfolios, a senior official in the premiers office, Sharat Chandra, told AFP. The son of a cobbler from the low-caste community, Shinde is a former police inspector who rose to become chief minister of the huge and politically vital western state of Maharashtra, home to commercial capital Mumbai.He is seen as a staunch loyalist to the Gandhi family, which dominates the ruling Congress party, and has passed ahead of rivals to grab one of the biggest jobs in the government despite having a previously low public profile. The opposition Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) criticised the changes and there was incredulity on Twitter, where many users questioned the timing of his promotion.There is nothing much here to be lauded, BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar told AFP. The power portfolio will be added to the responsibilities of M. Veerappa Moily, the current minister of corporate affairs, who will have to tackle an electricity crisis that has deeply embarrassed the government.Early on Monday, the northern grid collapsed shortly after 2:00 am in the worst blackout in a decade. On Tuesday, this network and two others in eastern India also failed as problems escalated.The finance portfolio is currently being handled by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who took over from former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee when he resigned last month to run for election to become Indias president.
