Naveen Patnaik takes over as CM for fifth term

Bhubaneswar: Biju Janata Dal president Naveen Patnaik was on Wednesday sworn-in as Odisha chief minister after he was re-elected with a decisive majority in the Assembly elections.

Congratulating CM Naveen, PM Narendra Modi took to Twitter and wrote: “Congratulations to Shri Naveen Patnaik Ji on taking oath as Odisha’s Chief Minister. Best wishes to him and his team in fulfilling the people’s aspirations. I assure complete cooperation from the Centre in working for Odisha’s progress.”

Mr Patnaik was administered oath of office and secrecy by governor Ganeshi Lal in a grand ceremony held at the Idco Exhibition Ground.

The BJD, which won 112 seats in the 147-member Assembly in the recently-concluded polls held simu-ltaneously with the LS polls, has been in power in Odisha since 2000.

It is the first time Mr Patnaik, who became the CM for the fifth consecutive term, took oath in an open public ground.

In 2000, 2004, 2009 and 2014, he was sworn-in at Raj Bhavan. Apart from the chief minister’s elder brother and businessman, Prem Patnaik, sister and noted writer Gita Mehta, around 7,000 dignitaries, including captains of industries, attended the swearing-in ceremony.

A large number of BJD supporters and grassroots leaders attended the function. Eleven Cabinet ministers — Ranendra Pratap Swain, Bikram Keshari Arukha, Prafulla Mallick, Padmanabh Behera, Pra-tap Jena, Niranjan Pujari, Arun Sahoo, Sudam Marandi, Sushant Singh, Naba Kishore Das and Tukuni Sahu — took oath along with the CM.

Similarly, Ashok Chan-dra Panda, Sameer Ran-jan Dash, Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi, Dibya Shankar Mishra, Premananda Nayak, Raghunandan Das, Padmini Dian, Tusharkanti Behera and Jagannath Saraka took oath as ministers of state.

“I am hopeful that the State Govt. will proactively support the Centre in uplifting the lives of our Odia brothers and siste-rs...,” BJP leader Dharme-ndra Pradhan tweeted.