BHUBANESWAR: In the biggest ever cabinet reshuffle in his 22-year-long reign, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday inducted 21 ministers including 7 first-timers and three women, a day after his entire cabinet resigned en masse paving way for cleansing the ministry of several controversial faces.
In the swearing-in ceremony held at the convention hall of the Lok Seva Bhawan in Bhubaneswar, 13 cabinet ministers and 8 ministers of state with independent charge were administered the oath of office by governor Professor Ganeshi Lal.
The cabinet ministers who took oath are Jagannath Saraka, Tukuni Sahu, Pramila Mallik, Ranendra Pratap Swain, Tusharkanti Behera, Naba Kishore Das, Samir Ranjan Dash, Pratap Keshari Deb, Atanu Sabyasachi, Rohit Pujari and Rajendra Dholakia.
The ministers of state who took oath are Sabita Hembram, Srikanta Sahu, Aswini Patra, Ashok Panda, Usha Devi, Niranjan Pujari, Priti Ranjan Ghadei, Pradip Amat and Rita Sahu.
Their portfolios will be allocated later in the day, officials familiar with the matter said.
On Saturday, 20 ministers resigned from the cabinet on the lines of YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government where all the ministers of the Yuvajana Shramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) government resigned en masse in April this year. On Saturday, Patnaik ordered the closure of offices of advisors/chairpersons of 23 different departments/corporations/boards.
Those who were dropped included law and panchayati raj minister Pratap Jena, higher education minister Arun Sahoo, minister of state (home) Dibya Shankar Mishra, commerce and transport minister Padmanabha Behera, labour and employees state insurance minister Sushanta Singh. Jena’s name came up in the murder case of a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and his associate in Cuttack district last year. Mishra was embroiled in a controversy last year over the murder of a woman school teacher in Kalahandi district. Though the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) refused to buckle under opposition pressure, party bosses were looking for an opportune moment to drop them from the ministry.
{{/usCountry}}Those who were dropped included law and panchayati raj minister Pratap Jena, higher education minister Arun Sahoo, minister of state (home) Dibya Shankar Mishra, commerce and transport minister Padmanabha Behera, labour and employees state insurance minister Sushanta Singh. Jena’s name came up in the murder case of a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and his associate in Cuttack district last year. Mishra was embroiled in a controversy last year over the murder of a woman school teacher in Kalahandi district. Though the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) refused to buckle under opposition pressure, party bosses were looking for an opportune moment to drop them from the ministry.
{{/usCountry}}Bikram Arukh, who was the forest minister, will be the new speaker of Legislative Assembly after incumbent speaker Surjya Patro resigned on Saturday, citing health grounds.
The rejig has come about at a time when the BJD government completed three years of its fifth term in office on May 29 and the party notched up its 5th bypoll win after 2019 assembly election. The reshuffle comes a few months after the party emerged victorious in the panchayat and civic body elections. Though the party has been consistently doing well in the polls, party strategists feel a new team should take over to add momentum to several welfare measures being undertaken by the government.