25 ministers inducted in Gamang ministry

BHUBANESWAR, Feb 22: The six-day old Giridhar Gamang ministry in Orissa was expanded on Monday with the induction of 25 more ministers. T...

BHUBANESWAR, Feb 22: The six-day old Giridhar Gamang ministry in Orissa was expanded on Monday with the induction of 25 more ministers. The new ministers were administered the oath of office and secrecy by acting Governor Dr C Rangarajan at a simple function in the Raj Bhawan here.

Parama Pujari who will be inducted as a Minister of State would, however, be sworn-in on Wednesday. The ministers sworn-in included 12 of Cabinet rank, five ministers of state with independent charge and seven ministers of state. As many as 12 ministers including five Cabinet ministers of the erstwhile J B Patnaik ministry have been dropped.

All the seven ministers of state who took oath are new faces. Basant Kumar Biswal who was the Deputy Chief Minister in the Patnaik ministry was sworn-in as a Cabinet minister. Other members who took oath as Cabinet ministers are Kanhu Charan Lenka, Durga Shankar Patnaik, Niranjan Patnaik, Bhagabat Prasad Mahanty, Bhupinder Singh, Matlub Ali, Raghunath Patnaik, Jagannath Patnaik, GajadharMajhi, Netranand Mallik and Saraswati Hembrum.

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Gajadhar Majhi and Netranand Mallik who were ministers of state in the J B Patnaik ministry have been elevated to the Cabinet rank. Saraswati Hembrum served as a junior minister in both J B Patnaik and Hemanand Biswal ministries in the 1980’s.

Prakash Debta, Suresh Routray, Navin Chandra Narayan Das, Bijaylaxmi Sahu and Haladhar Karjee have been inducted as ministers of state with independent charge. All the five were ministers of state in the J B Patnaik Cabinet.

The new faces are; Debendranath Mansingh, Anantram Majhi, Padmalochan Panda, Usharani Panda, Ripunath Seth, Prasad Harichandan and Surendra Singh Bhoi. Mansingh was the government chief whip in the State Assembly. Harichandan is the son-in-law of Suresh Routray, who took oath as a Minister of State with independent charge.

The Cabinet ministers who have been dropped are Kishore Chandra Patel, Prasanna Das, Harihar Swain, Ramchandra Ulaka and Habibullah Khan. The ministers of state who have beendropped are Jaydev Jena, Amar Pradhan, Jagannath Rout, Mohan Nag, Rabindra Sethi, Ramakant Mishra and Nagarjun Pradhan.

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While Jaydev Jena and Amar Pradhan belong to the Biswal camp, six of the 12 ministers dropped from the ministry are associated with the faction led by former chief minister J B Patnaik. However, Gamang has inducted ministers from all sections and the representation of the women and scheduled caste and scheduled tribe has gone up. While the number of women has gone up to four, there are seven tribals and two scheduled castes in the ministry. The ministry has six members from the other backward classes (OBCs) and nine from the general category castes.

Former chief minister J B Patnaik, president of the Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Hemananda Biswal, senior leader Nandini Satpathy, party MPs, MLAs, former MLAs and senior officials were present at the swearing in ceremony.