Odisha gets 21 new ministers, Naveen goes for complete makeover

Odisha Chief Minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik has gone for a complete makeover of his ministry by inducting 21 new faces on Sunday (June 5) in place of 20 ministers who resigned a day before.

The reshuffle coming midway into his government’s tenure has taken aback many as earlier such reshuffles would ensure change of only a few faces.

BJD MLAs Jagannath Saraka, Niranjan Pujari and R P Swain were among the 13 MLAs who were inducted as cabinet ministers, three of whom — Pramila Mallick, Usha Devi and Tukuni Sahu — were women.

Eight others were sworn in as Ministers of State (Independent Charge).

The new Cabinet Ministers are: Jagannath Saraka, Niranjan Pujari, Ranendra Pratap Swain, Pramila Mallick, 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.

The new Ministers of State (Independent Charge) are: Samir Ranjan Dash,Aswini Kumar Patra, Pritiranjan Ghadai, Srikanta Sahoo, Tusharkanti Behera, Rohit Pujari, Rita Sahu and Basanti Hembram.

The swearing-in ceremony was administered by Governor Ganeshi Lal at the new convention centre of Lok Seva Bhawan in Bhubaneswar.