“It is a vain exercise by the government to refurbish its image in the face of the corruption charges it is facing,” Rajiv Pratap Rudi, spokesman of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, told AFP.
Communists, who have dubbed the recent rush of reforms by the government as “anti-people”, also mocked the long-awaited revamp.
“The policies of the government will be the same they have been pursuing,” Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, told AFP.
Analysts too doubted that Sunday’s overhaul would do much for Congress’s fortunes when the country votes in an election scheduled for the spring of 2014.
“The cabinet reshuffle is a wake-up call which has come too late, just as the big-ticket reforms have come too late,” said Ajay Saha, a political scientist at Delhi University.
Khurshid said the new ministers were expected to think “out of the box”.
The new foreign minister told reporters that he saw “great opportunities… but also great challenges to peace and prosperity in our world”.
Singh confirmed that he had offered a cabinet post to Rahul Gandhi, whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather all served as prime minister, but the offer was declined.
“I wanted Rahul Gandhi in government but he wants to strengthen the party,” Singh said.
Gandhi currently serves as a member of parliament and heads the youth wing of the main ruling Congress party.
Singh himself, who turned 80 last month, is not expected to run for a third term in office.
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