Naveen Patnaik set to take oath as Odisha CM, for record 5th time

Chief minister-designate Naveen Patnaik is set to take oath on Wednesday as the chief minister of Odisha, for the fifth consecutive time.

Along with him, a 20-member Council of Ministers will also be sworn in.

Odisha Governor Ganeshi Lal had on Sunday invited Chief Minister and BJD president Patnaik to form the next government in the state. The Governor appointed 11 Cabinet ministers and nine Ministers of State on the recommendation of the chief minister.

The 72-year-old BJD supremo Patnaik, one of the longest-serving chief ministers, managed to retain the state for the fifth consecutive term in the recently concluded Lok Sabha election in the state.

The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled to be held at 10.30 am at the Exhibition Ground in Bhubaneswar, the Governor's office said in a press statement. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other political leaders have been invited to the ceremony.

The Cabinet Ministers who will take oath are Ranendra Pratap Swain, Bikram Keshari Arukha, Naba Kishore Das, Pratap Jena, Prafulla Kumar Mallick, Niranjan Pujari, Sudam Marndi, Susanta Singh, Tukuni Sahu, Arun Kumar Sahoo and Padmanav Behera

The state ministers include Ashok Chandra Panda, Samir Ranjan Dash, Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi, Dibya Shankar Mishra, Premananda Nayak, Raghunandan Das, Padmini Dian, Tusharkanti Behera and Jagannath Saraka.

Elections for the 147 seats in the Odisha Legislative Assembly and 21 Lok Sabha seats were held simultaneously in the state.

Patnaik won from two Assembly segments, his home turf Hinjili under the Aska Lok Sabha seat in southern Odisha and Bijapur in the Bargarh Lok Sabha seat in western Odisha.

BJD retained 12 of the 21 parliamentary seats in the state. The party secured 112 seats in the 147-member Odisha Assembly. BJP won 23 seats and Congress managed to win nine seats. An independent and CPI(M) won one seat each.

Patnaik, the son of former chief minister Biju Patnaik formed the BJD after quitting the Janata Dal in 1997. He became the chief minister for the first time in the year 2000 and his party had been in alliance with the BJP till 2009.

-ANI