Ten ministers inducted into Naveen Patnaik team, two promoted

Bhubaneswar: Ten new ministers were sworn in on Sunday in the Naveen Patnaik government’s first reshuffle. They were administered the oath by governor S.C. Jamir at Raj Bhavan here. Suryanarayan Patro, Prafulla Samal, Niranjan Pujari, Sashi Bhusan Behera, Pratap Jena and Maheswar Mohanty took the oath as Cabinet ministers, while Ananta Das, Chandra Sarathi Behera, Nrusingha Sahoo and Susant Singh were sworn in as ministers of state.

In addition, steel and mines minister Prafulla Mallick and commerce and transport minister Ramesh Majhi were promoted to Cabinet level, for which they also took the oath. Soon after the reshuffle, the CM distributed portfolios among the new ministers.

First-timer Sashi Bhusan Behera, a former MP, was given charge of finance and excise.