Bhubaneswar, May 8: On Sunday, Opposition leader and Congress MLA Narasingha Mishra alleged that proper rules were not followed during the swearing-in ceremony of the new elected ministers in Naveen Patnaik’s Cabinet held at Raj Bhavan here. He also said that the Odisha government has neglected a major number of the backward districts, a total of 13, while electing the new leaders as ministers. The 13 districts are Koraput, Rayagada,Malkangiri, Kalahandi, Bolangir, Jharsuguda, Boudh, Sambalpur, Deogarh, Sundargarh, Nuapada which have no representation in the council of ministers in the reshuffle. Mishra pointed out about the intro-party conflict in BJD that was evident at the swearing-in ceremony. None of ministers who had resigned on Saturday were present in the oath taking function. While Patnaik had said that the ministers had voluntarily resigned, some of them later said that they had done so on the direction of the Chief Minister. Even BJP spokesperson Sajjan Sharma claimed that backward areas such as Kalahandi, Bolangir, Mayurbhanj have no representation. Sharma called this re-shuffle as a “reflection of BJD’s poor performance” in the panchayat polls. Sharma further stated that he apprehends that may be the CM has done so for facing a somewhat failure in the panchayat polls. Sharma further said that no tribal minister from Jajpur, Nayagarh and Kendrapara even has been included in the council of ministers in the reshuffle. But Patnaik’s home district, Ganjam has four ministers, Bikram Keshari Arukha, S N Patro and Usha Devi along with Patnaik himself. Ganjam is considered as the entry point to the southern region of Odisha. Although Jajpur and Kendrapara districts are known as BJD’s fort, there wasn’t nay representatives from that region as well.
