Naveen drops four ministers, inducts six new into Orissa cabinet

Bhubaneswar, May 16 (UNI) Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today sprang a surprise when he dropped four Biju Janata Dal (BJD)ministers and announced induction of six new ministers into his Cabinet, a day after he completed two years in his office during his second term.

At a hurriedly called press conference at the state secretariat, Mr Patnaik announced that Panchayat Raj and Culture Minister Damodar Rout, Health and Family Welfare Minister Bijayashree Routary, Minister of state for School and Mass Education Nagendra Pradhan and Minister of state Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Department Balabhadra Majhi were dropped from the Cabinet.

He announced the induction of six new ministers, all from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and said the new ministers would be sworn-in tomorrow at 1030 hours.

The new ministers to be inducted into the Cabinet were Mr Bishnu Das, Mr Raghunath Mohanty and Mr Chaitanya Prasad Majhi, while Mr Debi Prasad Mishra, Mr Duryadhan Majhi and Mr Sanjeeb Kumar Sahu would be inducted into the council of Ministers as Minister of states.

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