Bhubaneswar: There are 10 new faces in Naveen Patnaik’s new 20-member council of ministers. Of them two are women faces — Padmini Dian and Tukuni Sahu.
An agriculturist, Dian holds the distinction of being appointed as a minister in her maiden stint as an MLA. She has been elected to the Odisha Assembly from Kotapad Assembly constituency in the tribal heartland of Koraput. She has been given the Ministry of Handlooms, Textiles & Handicrafts.
Meanwhile, Titlagarh MLA and the new Minister of Women and Child Development and Mission Shakti, Tukuni Sahu, said that she will try to continue the good work by the Chief Minister for women empowerment especially related to SHGs which had helped the rural women to be self-reliant and empowered.
Among the new faces in Naveen’s team, all eyes are on technocrats Premananda Nayak and Tusharkanti Behera. Nayak, 44, is a B-Tech graduate in Mechanical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Calicut. He got Skill Development & Technical Education department. Behera, an IIT graduate from Kharagpur, got Electronics & Information Technology, Sports & Youth Services portfolio.
Nayak said, “Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has given me the task as per my qualification and I hope that through my dedication I will be able to help in binging development in the sector.”
Nayak was elected from Telkoi in 2009 as an MLA. This year, he defeated BJP’s Dhanujaya Sidhu and Congress’ Prashant Dalei to bag the seat for the second time.
On the other hand, Behera was in BJP and the saffron party had given him a ticket to contest the Assembly election. However, he jumped ship at the last moment and joined the conch party. He fought from Kakatpur Assembly seat and won by a huge margin.
Other new faces such as Nimapara MLA Samir Ranjan Dash gets School & Mass Education; Jharsuguda MLA Naba Kishore Das, Health & Family Welfare; Balikuda-Erasama MLA Raghunandan Das, Water Resources, Information & Public Relations; Junagarh MLA Dibyashankar Mishra gets Energy, Industries, Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises; Bissam Cuttack MLA Jagannath Saraka ST/SC Development, Minorities & Backward Classes; Simulia MLA Jyotiprakash Panigarhi, Tourism, Odia Language, Literature & Culture.
