A much-awaited reshuffle in the State Ministry is in the offing soon after the current Budget Session of the Assembly scheduled to end on April 7 if not earlier on ground of lack of business.
This would be the first-ever Ministerial changes since the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) came to power for a fourth consecutive term in 2014.
This was amply indicated by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik after his return here on Friday from a five-day visit to New Delhi.
“We are looking into what could be done in this regard,” Patnaik said when reporters asked him if his Cabinet is going to be reshuffled soon.
Patnaik, also president of the BJD, too said a review of the results of the recently-held panchayat elections is on.
This probably indicates that many Ministers, in whose constituencies the BJD has suffered setbacks yielding the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) impressive gains, are to lose their Ministerial berths and to be replaced by party MlAs from the respective regions.
Besides, several Ministers, whose images are under cloud for corruption charges, including links with tainted chit fund scams, are likely to be shown the door.
According to political observers, Naveen Patnaik will make changes in the Cabinet to refurbish his own image in the wake of the BJD’s notable reverses in the rural polls with the ruling party’s vote share in the Zilla Parishad elections slipping to 56 per cent from the earlier 77 per cent, clearly showing an anti-incumbency trend to the benefit of a resurgent BJP.