Reshuffle in Orissa Ministry; Six sworn-in

Bhubaneswar, May 17 : Six Ministers, including three Cabinet Ministers-- all from the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), were sworn-in at a function inside the Raj Bhawan here today.

Orissa Governor Rameswar Thakur administered the oath of office and secrecy to the newly inducted Ministers in presence of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and his council of ministers.

The new Ministers included Mr Chaitanya Prasad Majhi, Mr Raghunath Mohanty and Mr Bishnu Das (all Cabinet Ministers) Mr Duryadhan Majhi Mr Debi Prasad Mishra and Mr Sanjeeb Kumar Sahu were inducted as Ministers of state.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik yesterday sprung a surprise by dropping four Ministers from his cabinet. They included Panchayat Raj and Culture Minister Damodar Rout, Health and Family Welfare Minister Bijayashree Routray (Cabinet Ministers), School and Mass Education Minister Nagendra Pradhan and Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Development Minister Balabhadra Majhi.

Later talking to the newspersons at the Raj Bhawan, the Chief Minister described the induction of new Ministers into the Council of Minister as a routine affair.

In fact, it was for the first time that the Chief Minister effected a reshuffle in his council of ministers after completion of two years of his office in the second term.

Mr Patnaik said those inducted into the Ministry were experienced party leaders and hoped that they would work hard to the satisfaction of the people of Orissa. The new ministers, he said would be allocated portfolios soon.

UNI