Bhubaneswar: Twenty-one Ministers-designate have taken oath of Office and Secrecy in a glittering ceremony here at the Convention Hall of Lok Seva Bhawan.
For the first time, the Oath Taking ceremony was organized at the Lok Seva Bhawan (State Secretariat). Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and other dignitaries graced the occasion.
The programme started at sharp 11.45 AM with Chief Secretary SC Mahapatra taking permission of Governor Prof Ganeshi Lal.
Mr.Mahapatra read out the Order of Appointments. Then, the Governor administered the Oath of Office and Secrecy to the newly inducted Ministers.
As many as 13 MLAs have sworn in as Cabinet Ministers while eight others took oath as Minister of State (MoS).
The Cabinet Ministers are—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 Gharai, Srikanta Sahu, Tusharkanti Behera, Rohit Pujari, Rita Sahu and Basanti Hembram have been inducted as Minister of State with Independent Charge.
However, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has not allocated the portfolios among the new Ministers so far. The allocation of portfolios will be done during the day, sources said.
Seven BJD Law Makers —Rajendra Dholakia, Aswini Kumar Patra, Rohit Pujari, Srikanta Sahu, Pritiranjan Gharai, Basanti Hembram and Rita Sahu have taken oath as Minister for the first time in their political life.
Similarly, Jagannath Saraka and Ashok Panda got promoted to Cabinet rank from MoS.
Among the new Ministers, Mr.Dholakia is the only leader who was directly elevated to Cabinet status directly. Excluding him, all other new Cabinet Ministers have already served as a Minister during different terms of the Naveen Patnaik Government.
Top Mandarins and High Dignitaries graced the occasion and Department of Information & Public Relations organized the Meet smoothly in presence of former Media Advisor of Odisha Government and MP, Manas Mangaraj and Principal Secretary Information & Public Relations, Bishnupada Sethi.
As many as 11 Ministers have been dropped from the new Council of Ministers. The leaders are– Bikram Keshari Arukha, Padmanabha Behera, Pratap Jena, Aruna Kumar Sahoo, Sudam Marndi, Susanta Singh, Dibya Shankar Mishra, Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi, Premananda Nayak, Raghunandan Das and Padmini Dian.
BJD insiders said that some of the senior leaders, who were dropped from the cabinet, will be given key roles in the organisation aiming at the 2024 general elections.
Before the reshuffle, for the first time in his 22 years of rule, Naveen had asked all Ministers to resign from their positions with immediate effect. There were 20 members in the last State Council of Ministers, of which nine were given Minister of State (MoS) status.