Cabinet expansion in Odisha, 5 ministers dropped, 9 inducted

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Five ministers were dropped on Thursday from the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD ministry and nine new faces inducted, ending speculation over cabinet expansion two months after a failed coup bid against the Chief Minister in Odisha.

Governor M.C. Bhandare administered oath of office and secrecy to the nine new ministers, including three of cabinet rank and six ministers of state. Besides former ministers Damodar Rout and Bijayshree Routray, the other new cabinet minister who took oath was Dharmasala MLA Kalpataru Das, a first time minister.

The six new Ministers of State were Pratap Keshari Deb, Subrat Tarai, Rajanikant Singh, Sarojini Hembram, Arun Kumar Sahu and Rabi Narayan Nanda.

Five ministers, including state Finance Minister Prafulla Ghadai, were dropped as most of them were considered close to BJD MP Pyari Mohan Mohapatra who had allegedly engineered the failed coup bid against the Patnaik government on May 29 when the Chief Minister was out of India.

The five ministers tendered their resignation, which were forwarded to the Governor for acceptance, sources said. Besides Ghadai, Tourism and Culture Minister Prafulla Samal, Energy Minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, Labour Minister Pushpendra Singhdeo and School and Mass Education Minister Pratap Jena have also resigned.

Soon after the ministry expansion, the key finance portfolio, so far held by Ghadai who presented the state budget for nine years in a row, was handed over to Prasanna Acharya, hitherto Health and Family Welfare minister while the chief minister retained departments like Home, General Administration, Works and Water Resources.

New cabinet minister Damodar Rout was given Health and Family Welfare while Routray got Forest and Environment.