Failing his own promises of sweeping changes in the UPA-II midterm, prime minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday carried out a cautious and limited reshuffle of his council of ministers, dropping seven ministers, inducting eight and promoting five others.

The councils strength is now 68, up by one from the last council. President estate had it easy as only thirteen ministers were sworn-in. No explanation was forthcoming from the 78-year-old Singh or his aides over the tepid reshuffle. And by stating that this is the last reshuffle before the 2014 polls, the prime  minister has effectively missed his last opportunity to rejuvenate a government whose image is tarred by a series of corruption scandals involving senior ministers, stubborn inflation and economic slowdown.

Of the eight relieved of council berths, Dayanidhi Maran of DMK had stepped down earlier this month after being named in the 2G scam. But the prime minister seems to have steered clear of dropping other ministers dogged by controversy and esing out non-performers. Vilasrao Deshmukh, whose name has been popping in the news inconnection with the Adarsh scam may have been shunted to science and technology ministry after his stint as the rural development minister, but he has not been dropped. Only 12 of the four dozen ministries will have new cabinet ministers or ministers of state with independent charge. The PM has not even taken the burden off colleagues holding dual charges like HRD minister Kapil Sibal who was also given the communications and IT portfolio after A Raja's exit.

In January, Singh had promised a major reshuffle and expansion, after a similar exercise was criticised as 'wanting'.

BJP'S dig: The main opposition, Bhartiya Janata Party, was quick to dub the reshuffle an "aimless rotation" falling far short of public expectations. Party spokesperson Syed Shahnawaz Hussain told reporters, "The reshuffle clearly shows that the government does not care about popular sentiment. People expected significant changes this time." The PM's decision to retain those hitting headlines over the Lokpal fracas like home minister P Chidambaram and telecom minister Kapil Sibal is astounding, he added.

After the first rejig of the UPA-II ministry in January, Singh had been talking of big changes that led to speculation of changes in the four major ministries of home, defence, finance and external affairs. At one stage, external affairs minister S M Krishna seemed on his way out but Tuesday's announcement shows he stays put.

Law minister: All in command of the key ministries were left untouched except for shunting out of law minister M Veerappa Moily to the corporate ministry. Salman Khurshid was brought in his place, retaining minority affairs but shedding water resources back to parliamentary affairs miniser Pawan Kumar Bansal. Moily filled the vacancy caused by the resignation of Murli Deora.

The other major change was the induction of Jairam Ramesh into the cabinet with the rural development portfolio. But Ramesh had to cede the environment and forests portfolio as minister of state (independent charge) to Jayanthi Natarajan, Congress spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member. Ramesh's stint at the ministry will probably be best remembered for the uphevals caused by his activism.

The only new face in the cabinet minister is 64-year-old Andhra MP V Kishore Chandra Deo, a four-term Lok Sabha MP, who gets the tribal affairs and panchayati raj portfolios. Kantilal Bhuria was dropped from the cabinet post to facilitate his fill-time involvement as Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee chief. Panchayati raj was taken from Deshmukh.

Promotions: Three others sworn in as cabinet ministers are all promotions. Besides Jairam Ramesh, the other two are Trinamool Congress' Dinesh Trivedi who has been made the railway minister to fill the vacancy created by his party chief Mamata Banerjee's exit after the West Bengal polls and Beni Prasad Verma, whose elevation as the steel minister is being attributed to the Congress wanting high-profile ministers from Uttar Pradesh in view of the assembly elections in the state next year. Verma's portfolio, however, remains unchanged as he was so far MoS Steel with independent charge.

Trinamul's Mukul Roy, who was given additional charge as MoS of Railways when Mamata resigned, is back in the shipping ministry as MoS.

Four have been made MoS with independent charges, two of them promoted from the MoS status - Gurudas Kamat and Srikant Jena - and two new faces of Jayanthi Natarajan and Paban Singh Ghatowar, who has been inducted as north eastern minister from Assam to compensate for the exit of B K Handique who has been dropped.

Five new MoS: Five new faces as MoS include Trinamool's Sudip Bandopadhyaya who gets Dinesh Trivedi's office. Kamat's standing responisbilities have been split between Milind Deora (communications and information technology) and 39-year old Alwar (Rajasthan) MP Jitendra Singh (home affairs). Jitendra is a first time MLA.

Rajiv Shukla, a journalist-turned Rajya Sabha MP, joined the council as MoS parliamentary affairs to fill the slot now vacated by Ashwani Kumar.

E Ahamed, MoS for external affairs, of UPA partner Muslim League has been given additional charge as MOS Human Resources Development.

V Narayanasamy retained his position as the MoS in the PMO and charge of ministry of personnel, but he was relieved the responsibility of the parliamentary affairs which was given to Uttarakhand MP Harish Rawat, in addition to his role as MOS agriculture and food processing.