KENDRAPARA: Considered a citadel of the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD), the coastal district of Kendrapara has got two Ministers in the State Cabinet which was reshuffled on Sunday. Mahakalapada MLA Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak and Aul legislator Pratap Keshari Deb have been inducted by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik as Ministers in his new Cabinet.
While Nayak, a former minister, was allotted the food and consumer welfare and cooperation portfolios, Deb has been rewarded with industries, micro, small energy and medium enterprises. Following the fire mishap at Bhubaneswar’s Sum Hospital in 2016, then Minister of Health and Family Welfare Nayak resigned accepting moral responsibility for the tragedy that claimed 25 lives. Deb, the scion of Aul royal family, was the Food Supplies Minister from 2012 to 2014.
From 1990 to 1995, then Chief Minister Biju Patnaik had inducted Patkura MLA Bijaya Mohapatra, Rajnagar legislator Nalinikanta Mohanty and Kendrapara MLA Bedaprakash Agrawalla as Cabinet Ministers from the district. However, the district was without ministerial representation for the last three years.
Iswar Chandra Sahoo, a retired school teacher of Kendrapara, said, “We are happy that after over two decades, the district got two Cabinet Ministers. We hope both the Ministers will carry out much development works in the district.”Earlier, there were talks about Patkura MLA Sabitri Agrawalla and Kendrapara legislator Sashibhusan Behera bagging plum portfolios in the ministry. But their names did not find a place in the final list of Ministers.