Biju Janata Dal (BJD) President Naveen Patnaik next government in the state will have 11 Cabinet Ministers and 9 Ministers of State, stated a release from Raj Bhavan Office on Tuesday. All the ministers along with Chief Minister will be taking oath on Wednesday.
Odisha can have a maximum of 21 cabinet ministers including CM Naveen Patnaik which is 15% of the strength of the assembly as prescribed by the Sarkaria Commission.
Naveen Patnaik who will be taking oath as Chief Minister for fifth term has inducted 10 new faces. Naveen Patnaik-led Cabinet will have: Telkoi MLA Premaanda Nayak, Titlagarh MLA Tukuni Sahu (Female), Nimapara MLA Sameer Das, Jharsuguda MLA Naba Kishore Das, Kotpad MLA Padmini Dian (Woman), Balikuda-Erasama MLA Raghunandan Das, Junagarh MLA Dibyashankar Mishra, Bissam Cuttack MLA Jagannath Saraka, Simulia MLA Jyotiprakash Panigarhi, and Kakatpur MLA Tusharkanti Behera.
The 11 cabinet ministers are: Ranendra Pratap Swain, Bikram Keshari Arukha, Prafulla Mallick, Niranjan Pujari, Padmanabh Behera, Pratap Jena, Arun Kumar Sahoo, Sudam Marandi, Sushant Singh, Naba Kishore Das, and Tukuni Sahu (woman).
The nine Ministers of State are: Ashok Chandra Panda, Sameer Ranjan Dash, Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi, Dibya Shankar Mishra, Premananda Nayak, Raghunandan Das, Padmini Dian (Woman), Tusharkanti Behera and Jagannath Saraka.
Lawmakers including Bikram Arukh, Pratap Jena, Niranjan Pujari, Prafulla Mallick, Ashok Panda and Sushant Singh are among the who have retained their ministerial berths in the state.
Former Minister and BJD Vice President S N Patro is likely to be named as the Speaker of the Odisha Legislative Assembly.
Newly elected MLAs of the Biju Janta Dal in Odisha met on Sunday to elect Naveen Patnaik as the leader of the legislature party. This will be the fifth term of Naveen Patnaik as the Chief Minister of Odisha.
Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday visited Shree Jagannath temple in Puri and sought blessings before taking oath for the fifth term.
Patnaik had invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the swearing in ceremony. However, Modi is unlikely to attend the function, party sources said.
State Polls and national elections in the state held simultaneously. BJD in the recently concluded state polls won 112 seats, 5 less than what they had won in 2014 State polls. While BJP won 23, Congress 9 and one each bag by CPI-M and Independent Candidate. While in national polls, BJD won 12, BJP managed to make inroads in the state with its victory on 8 Lok Sabha Seats while Congress only won a lone seat of Koraput.
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