Naveen gives weight to Ministers of State
The Ministry making and distribution portfolios among the Ministers by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has hurt a number of ruling BJD’s MlAs, particularly the senior leaders.
Particularly, the distribution of portfolios, has evoked discontent among some Cabinet-rank Ministers as, much weight was given to Ministers of the State by entrusting them with plump departments.
Being a Cabinet Minister for a long period of time and known for his administrative acumen, Damodar Rout was apparently snubbed by the Chief Minister.
Rout was expecting either to retain his Health and Family Welfare and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Departments or, instead, to get Revenue and Disaster Management Department in the new team. But he was given Excise and Cooperation, which a Minister of State could manage.
Also taking the case of Debi Prasad Mishra. In the outgoing Ministry, he was the Minister of important portfolios like Agriculture, Fisheries and Animal Resources Development and Housing and Urban Development. Now, he has been allotted less important departments like Industries and School and Mass Education.
On the other hand, Ministers of States like Atanu Sabyachi Nayak, Arun Sahu, Prafulla Mallick, Pradeep Panigrahi and Pranab Prakash Das were awarded with plump portfolios.
Nayak was given the important departments like Health and Family Welfare and Information and Public Relations while Sahu got equally major portfolios of Panchayati Raj and law.
The Chief Minister has reposed faith on outgoing Assembly Speaker Pradeep Kumar Amat by allotting him the Finance portfolio.
The Chief Minister has again entrusted the Women and Child Development Department to Usha Devi while Bikram Keshari Arukh, who was the Rural Development Minister last time, has been given important portfolios like Parliamentary Affairs and Forest and Environment.
First-time MlA Snehangini Chhuria has been allotted the Departments of Handloom, Textiles and Handicraft and Mission Shakti.
Five members of the outgoing Council of Ministers, Maheswar Mohanty, Surjya Narayan Patro, Niranjan Pujari, Rajani Kanta Singh and Subrat Tarai were not included in the new team.
Besides, a number of other aspirants like Bed Prakash Agrawala, Balabhadra Majhi, Dr Raseswari Panigrahi, Sashibhushan Behera, Rabinarayan Mohapatra, Prafulla Samal, Jugal Kishore Patnaik, Bhagirathi Badajena, Jiban Pradip Das, Ranendra Pratap Swain, Pravat Ranjan Biswal and Dr Nrushinga Sahu also failed to get the blessings of their party supremo.