NEW DELHI, June 5: The Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday reconstituted his council of ministers, the first in his fifth term, inducting 21 ministers while dropping 11 from his previous cabinet. Besides giving weightage to young faces, Patnaik has also increased women’s representation in the cabinet from two to five.
Governor Ganeshi Lal administered the oath of office and secrecy to the new Ministers in the presence of Patnaik and senior party functionaries at the Lokseba Bhawan in Odisha’s capital city of Bhubaneshwar. In the reshuffle, 11 Ministers, including six holding Cabinet berths, were dropped. Senior Ministers Pratap Jena, Arun Kumar Sahoo, Sushanta Singh and Bikram Keshari Arukha lost their Cabinet berths. Seven MLAs took oath as Ministers for the first time in their career.
Patnaik increased women’s representation from two in the last Cabinet to five. Usha Devi, senior MLA from Chikiti constituency, and Pramilla Mallick, MLA from Binjharpur, have returned to the Cabinet while Tukuni Sahu held on to her Cabinet berth. Rita Sahu, MLA of Bijepur constituency in Bargarh district, and Basanti Hembram, Karanjia MLA from Mayurbhanj, are the other two women who have been made Ministers for the first time.
Rajendra Dholakia, Nuapada MLA, made his debut as a Cabinet Minister. Ashok Chandra Panda, former Minister of State (independent) in the Science and Technology Department, Jagannath Sarka, Minister of State with independent charge for ST and SC Development, Minorities and Backward Classes department in the last Cabinet, were promoted to Cabinet berth.
Of the eight Ministers of State (independent) inducted, six were new faces. Sameer Ranjan Das, who was Minister of State (independent charge) for School and Mass Education, was retained. Surprisingly, Surjya Narayan Patro, who had resigned as the speaker of the state Assembly along with the ministers on Saturday giving rise to speculations that he could be inducted in the cabinet, did not figure in Patnaik’s list of ministers. Incidentally, 12 of the 30 districts did not have any representation in the new Ministry.
In the allocation of portfolios, some of the ministers retained continued to hold the same departments as in the outgoing cabinet. Among them were Niranjan Pujari who remained Finance Minister, Prafulla Kumar Mallick (Steel and Mines), Naba Kisore Das (Health and Family Welfare), Ashok Chandra Panda, (Science and Technology, Social Security and Empower of Persons with Disability) and Sameer Ranjan Dash (School and Mass Education).
(Manas Dasgupta)