The Hindu : Other States News : Naveen hints at Cabinet expansion

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Tuesday, Dec 11, 2007
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Naveen hints at Cabinet expansion

Special Correspondent

BHUBANESWAR: The long awaited expansion of the Orissa Council of Ministers is likely to happen soon.

This became clear when Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik told reporters at the State Secretariat on Monday that he was considering filling the two vacancies that existed in his Ministry.

Changes in the portfolios of some present Ministers was also likely when the Chief Minister expands his Ministry to fill the vacancies.

Of the two existing vacancies, one has to be filled with a legislator belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party and one from Mr. Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal.

BJP deadline

The Ministerial berth belonging to the BJP has been lying vacant since April last year when Pradipta Kumar Naik had resigned in the wake of filing of a case alleging irregularities in the affidavit that he had filed while filing his nomination papers for the 2004 Assembly elections. Some legislators of the BJP had been demanding filling of the vacant berth since long. They had also fixed December 5 as the deadline for this.

The BJD’s berth had fallen vacant with the resignation of Bishnu Charan Das as School and Mass Education Minister in August this year.

Mr. Das had stepped down in the wake of a controversy over discrepancies in the matriculation mark-sheet of his son.

The Ministry has a total of 20 members at present, including the Chief Minister. While 13 members, including the Chief Minister, belonged to the BJD, the remaining seven were from the BJP.

The strength of the Council of Ministers was restricted to 22 as per the norms decided by the Sarkaria Commission when the BJD-BJP alliance assumed power for the second term in May 2004. The ratio in the ruling alliance was fixed as 14 for the BJD and eight for the BJP.

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