Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday took oath as Odisha CM for the fifth time. He was administered the oath by Odisha Governor Ganeshi Lal in a function at the Exhibition Ground in the capital Bhubaneshwar.
The strength of the council of ministers in Odisha at 21, including the chief minister, is less than 15 per cent of the strength of the assembly as prescribed by the Sarkaria Commission.
Patnaik's new ministry have 10 new faces: Telkoi MLA Premaanda Nayak, Titlagarh MLA Tukuni Sahu (Woman), 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.
WATCH: Naveen Patnaik takes oath as the Chief Minister of Odisha for a fifth time https://t.co/k5DSeKrkUm
— ANI (@ANI) May 29, 2019
Bikram Arukh, Pratap Jena, Niranjan Pujari, Prafulla Mallick, Ashok Panda and Sushant Singh are among the legislators who retained their ministerial berths.\The Biju Janata Dal, which secured 112 seat in the 147-member Odisha Assembly in the recently concluded elections, held along with Lok Sabha polls, has been in power in the state since 2000. Though Patnaik in earlier four occasions (2000, 2004, 2009 and 2014) was sworn in at the Raj Bhavan, this is for the first time that he will be taking oath in a grand manner.
Apart from the chief minister's elder sister and noted writer Gita Mehta, around 7,000 dignitaries including captains of industries and some Padma awardees attended the swearing-in ceremony, sources said.The BJP has bagged 23 and the Congress nine assembly seats in the state. Independent and CPI(M) have secured one seat each