Bhubaneswar, May 21: Naveen Patnaik was on Thursday
sworn-in as Orissa Chief Minister for the third consecutive
term, heading a 21-member ministry of BJD, the first regional
party to come to power on its own in the state.
Eleven Cabinet ministers and nine ministers of state
were also administered the oath of office and secrecy along
with Patnaik by Governor M C Bhandare at the Raj Bhavan here.
"We will have to make efforts to work 10 times harder
to fulfill the wishes of the people," Patnaik said after the
ceremony.
Patnaik, 62-year-old son of late Biju Patnaik has
retained six of his Cabinet ministers from the previous
coalition government with the BJP while inducting three former
ministers and two new faces.
Eight of the ministers of state are also new faces
except Sanjib Sahu, who was a member of the previous
government.
The eight are Sarada Prasad Nayak, Pushpendra Singh
Deo, Ramesh Majhi, Pratap Jena, Prabin Chandra Bhanja Deo,
Atanu Sabyasachi, Badrinarayan Patra and Anjali Behera.
Another member in the earlier ministry, Pradip Amat,
has been chosen to be the BJD's candidate for the post of
Speaker.
BJD, which stunned political pundits by abruptly
ending its 11-year-old alliance with the BJP just before the
polls, decided to go it alone in both Lok Sabha and assembly
elections and confounded all by claiming 103 out of 147
assembly seats and 14 of the 21 parliamentary constituencies.
Those retained in the cabinet are Prafulla Chandra
Ghadei, Ananga Uday Singh Deo, Suryanarayan Patra, Debi Prasad
Mishra, Raghunath Mohanty and Pramila Mallick.
The party's secretary general Damodar Rout, whom
Patnaik had dropped from his ministry earlier, has been
brought back along with Prasanna Acharya and Prafulla Samal.
Acharya, who was a Lok Sabha member for the last three terms,
contested the assembly polls this time.
The new faces in the cabinet are Bikram Keshari Arukh,
who was the BJD chief whip in the previous house and Bijay
Ranjan Singh Bariha. Arukh was elected from Bhanjanagar with
the highest margin of 73,000 votes.
Party-hoppers denied berths in govt
Orissa Chief Minister Naveen
Patnaik sidelined party hoppers and rewarded the loyalists of
his charismatic father Biju Patnaik in distributing berths in
his 21-member ministry today.
As a result, senior leaders like Bed Prakash Agarwal,
Aurobindo Dhali and Nrushingha Sahu, who had joined BJD, the
first regional party who made it on its own in the state, just
ahead of the elections were denied ministerial berths though
they won the polls.
Agarwal, who defeated BJP stalwart Bijay Mohapatra in
Patkura assembly seat, was a minister in Patnaik's first term
as a BJP member. He had, however, lost the 2004 polls and
succeeded this time as a BJD candidate.
Dhali had joined BJD after quitting Samajwadi Party. He
had, earlier, been elected to the assembly from Malkangiri
assembly seat on BJP ticket.
Sahu was a Congress MLA in the last assembly and joined
the BJD after being denied ticket from his traditional Parjang
seat.
Patnaik selectively chose Biju loyalists Prafulla Samal,
Prasanna Acharya and Damodar Rout.
Rout, who was dropped from the council of ministers
during Patnaik's previous tenure, was sworn in as cabinet
minister.
Though ousted from the cabinet, Rout, who returned to the
assembly from Paradip assembly seat, continued his loyalty to
the party and the Chief Minister, which ultimately paid
him dividends.
Samal and Acharya, ministers in the Biju Patnaik cabinet
in the early 1990s took oath as ministers. Though Samal was
almost out of the political arena for a decade, he was given a
ministerial berth.
Acharya, a BJD Lok Sabha MP for over a decade, contested
the assembly polls this time.
In fact of the 11 cabinet ministers, 6 were in Biju
Patnaik's cabinet in 1990. They are Prafulla Ghadei, Damador
Rout, A U Singhdeo, Prasanna Acharya, Prafulla Samal and
S N Patro.
The other members of the new council of ministers are
fresh faces while Pravin Chandra Bhanjadeo is a debutant in
the assembly.
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, May 21, 2009, 08:40