Bhubaneswar, May 21 (Inditop) Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief Naveen Patnaik was Thursday sworn in as Orissa chief minister for the third consecutive term. Twenty other ministers – 11 of them of cabinet rank – took oath with him.
Governor M.C. Bhandare administered the oath of office and secrecy to them at a ceremony attended by hundreds of party leaders, workers, officials and journalists at the Raj Bhavan here.
Clad in a white dhoti-kurta, the bachelor leader took oath in English while party workers raised slogans in his favour outside Raj Bhavan.
Among the ministers who took oath, seven retained their places; Patnaik inducted 10 young faces, who became ministers for the first time.
The seven are A.U. Singh Deo, Prafulla Ghadai, Suryanarayan Patro, Raghunath Mohanty, Debi Prasad Mishra, Pramila Mallik – all cabinet rank – and Sanjib Sahu, minister of state.
Those who were sworn in for the first time as ministers are Bikram Keshari Arukh, Bijaya Singh Beriha, Badri Narayan Patra, Sarada Nayak, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, Puspendra Singh Deo, Pratap Kumar Jena, Ramesh Majhi, Anjali Behera and Prakash Chandra Bhanjadeo.
While Arukh and Beriha were given cabinet berth, others became ministers of state.