Naveen drops Pyari loyalists from team

The expansion has increased the strength of the ministry to 21

Nearly two months after he survived a coup by his one-time advisor Pyari Mohan Mohapatra,Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Thursday shunted out loyalists of the Rajya Sabha MP from his ministry.

In a major reshuffle,Patnaik inducted nine new ministers,six of them first-timers,in his Cabinet and removed five,including the powerful finance minister Prafulla Ghadei. The expansion has increased the strength of the ministry to 21.

Those who went out,besides Ghadei,are tourism minister Prafulla Samal,energy minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak,labour minister Pushpendra Singhdeo and school and mass education minister Pratap Jena,all of whom reportedly played a part in the May 29 coup.

Soon after the rebellion,Naveen had removed Anjali Behera,Sanjeev Sahoo and Sarada Nayak,all loyalists of Mohapatra,who has since been suspended from the BJD,from his Cabinet.

Sources in the BJD said more ministers and MLAs are likely to be shown the door in coming weeks. Ministers Surya Narayan Patro,Lal Bihari Himirika,Debi Prasad Mishra and Maheswar Mohanty,all Mohapatra loyalists,escaped the sack on Thursday.

Meanwhile,Kalpataru Das was made the new minister for panchayati raj and parliamentary affairs,Damodar Rout for health and family welfare,small and medium enterprises and Bijayashree Routray for forest and environment and labour.

Rajnikant Singh,Arun Sahu,Rabi Narayan Nanda,Pratap Keshari Deb,Subrat Tarai,Sarojini Hembram were made ministers of state. Patnaik also shuffled portfolios of several ministers.

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Prasanna Acharya replaced Ghadei as finance minister,Niranjan Pujari was moved to excise ministry,Raghunath Mohanty to Housing and urban development,Usha Devi to woman and child development,Maheswar Mohanty to tourism and culture,Bikram Keshari Arukh to rural development and Debi Prasad Mishra to agriculture.

Patnaik kept the ministries of home,general administration,water resources and public works with him. Patnaik also removed the governments chief whip Rabinarayan Pani and replaced him with Prabhat Tripathy.