NEW DELHI, 2 July — Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee yesterday carried out a major Cabinet reshuffle designed to revive the electoral fortunes of his ruling Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party. Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh swapped jobs in what was seen as an attempt to breathe life into the economy.

Some younger ministers left the government to work for the party and 13 new ministers and junior ministers were appointed in an overhaul in which hard-line Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani was also promoted to deputy prime minister. “There is only one aim for all these changes, to make the party strong and to get the government to work better,” Vajpayee said at BJP headquarters, where a new party president took over.

Vajpayee sent six ministers to work to rejuvenate the BJP, including Rural Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu, 52, who took over as BJP president from 72-year-old Jana Krishnamurthy. Among those sworn in were two former film stars, but little room was made for new ministers from the BJP’s coalition allies. The appointments enlarge the Cabinet from 21 to 25. In addition, nine junior ministers were sworn in at a ceremony at the British-built presidential palace here. Vajpayee, however, refused to take Mamata Banerjee, a firebrand leader of a crucial political ally of his coalition administration, into his three-tier Cabinet.

The prime minister also sacked his health minister, C.P. Thakur, and three ministers of state including Maneka Gandhi, daughter-in-law of slain Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. A surprise introduction in the Cabinet was Shatrughan Sinha, a BJP stalwart from eastern state of Bihar who is hugely popular and has earned the nickname of “Shotgun Sinha” for his macho role in scores of Bollywood action thrillers before he joined politics. Analysts also saw it as the BJP reasserting its authority in the 20-party coalition government it heads after a series of setbacks in state polls earlier this year.