English
Bhubaneswar, May 6: In a major development, eight ministers along with Odisha Legislative Assembly speaker Niranjan Pujari resigned from their posts ahead of cabinet reshuffle on Sunday. The Raj Bhawan has already been intimated about the decision by the government led by Chief Minister Navin Patnaik.
Seven ministers – Odisha Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Minister, Sanjay Dasburma, Panchayatiraj and Law Minister, Arun Sahoo, Higher Education Minister, Pradeep Panigrahi, Housing and Urban Development Minister, Pushpendra Singhdeo, Sports Minister, Sudam Marndi, Energy Minister Pranab, Prakash Das and ST and SC Development Minister, Lal Bihari Himirika – have already resigned from their posts ahead of the ministry reshuffle.
The cabinet reshuffle comes in the wake of the results of panchayat polls in which Bharatiya Janta Party emerged as the challenging power in the politics of the state. The impressive performance of the saffron party has created troubles for Biju Janta Dal which has been ruling the state for past two decades.
However, the party appears to be frightened after the recent panchayat poll results where it failed to repeat the performance of Odisha assembly elections results. In the assembly elections of 2014, the Biju Janta Dal won the whopping 117 out of 147 seats in assembly whereas the Congress and Bhartiya Janta Party won 16 and 10 seats respectively.
As per the Oriya TV, Amar Satpathy, Debasish Nayak, Sashi Bhusan Behera, Maheswar Mohanty, Prafulla Samal ,Ranendra Pratap Swain, Rabi Narayan Mohapatra, Niranjan Pujari, Pratap Jena, Sushant Singh and Surya Narayan Patro have emerged strong contenders for the ministers.
(With inputs from ANI)
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