Odisha Cabinet reshuffled: 21 Ministers take oath, 7 new faces inducted
Bureau,Odishabarta
Bhubaneswar: Twenty-one new ministers of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s Cabinet have taken oaths of office and secrecy at a glittering ceremony here on Sunday. For the first time, the swearing-in ceremony was organised at Lok Seva Bhawan (State secretariat).
Governor Ganeshi Lal administered the oaths of office and secrecy to the newly-inducted ministers in the presence of Chief Minister Naveen and senior BJD leaders. As many as 13 Minister-designates have been sworn in as Cabinet Minister while eight others took oath as Minister of State (MoS). There were 20 members in the last Council of Ministers of Naveen.
The newly-inducted Cabinet ministers are a Jagannath Saraka, Niranjan Pujari, Ranendra Pratap Swain, Pramila Mallik, Usha Devi, Prafulla Kumar Mallik, Pratap Keshari Deb, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, Pradip Kumar Amat, Naba Kishore Das, Ashok Chandra Panda, Tukuni Sahu and Rajendra Dholakia.
Similarly, Samir Ranjan Dash, Aswini Kumar Patra, Pritiranjan Ghadai, Srikanta Sahu, Tusharkanti Behera, Rohit Pujari, Rita Sahu and Basanti Hembram have been sworn in as MoS.
Seven BJD legislators Rajendra Dholakia, Aswini Kumar Patra, Rohit Pujari, Srikanta Sahu, Pritiranjan Ghadai, Basanti Hembram and Rita Sahu have been inducted as ministers for the first time in their political history. Similarly, Jagannath Saraka and Ashok Panda got promoted to Cabinet rank from MoS.
Naveen has increased the representation from western Odisha in his Council of Ministers to seven as the ruling BJD is facing challenge from BJP in the region. A day before the reshuffle, for the first time in his 22 years of political history, Naveen had asked all ministers to resign from their positions with immediate effect. Of the 20-member previous Council of Ministers, nine leaders were re-inducted in the new Cabinet.
Naveen has dropped 11 ministers from the previous Council of Ministers. The legislators who were dropped from the previous Cabinet are Bikram Keshari Arukha, Padmanabha Behera, Pratap Jena, Arun Kumar Sahoo, Sudam Marndi, Susanta Singh, Dibya Shankar Mishra, Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi, Premananda Nayak, Raghunandan Das and Padmini Dian.
After swearing-in, Cabinet Minister Tukuni Sahu said, “I have already served as Women and Child Development Minister in Naveen’s Cabinet. I will try my best to discharge whatever new responsibility will be given to me. Will work hard to realise the vision of our CM.”
Thanking the Chief Minister for inducting him as a Minister, first timer MoS Rohit Pujari said, “My only motive is to take forward the developmental works undertaken under the leadership of Naveen Patnaik.”
Picture courtesy: I & PR Department, Odisha
