(Top) Sarada Prasad Nayak and (above) AU Singh Deo. Telegraph pictures

Bhubaneswar, June 5: Excise seems to have become a jinxed portfolio. Ministers in charge of the department have been embroiled in various controversies and forced to quit in several cases, the latest being Sarada Prasad Nayak, who was axed by chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday.

To the superstitious, ministers of the women and child development and agriculture departments too would appear to be stalked by the evil eye.

When Naveen Patnaik assumed office in 2000, Ananda Acharya was the excise minister. He survived for a period of four years but was denied the party ticket in 2009.

After Acharya, BJD leader from Cuttack Kalandi Charan Behera became the excise minister. During his tenure, a hooch tragedy led to the death of 30 people and he was forced to quit. He has not been able to stage a comeback. He survived only for two years.

Behera was succeeded by Padmanabha Behera for a brief period of one month. Later, Debi Prasad Mishra was given the department for one year. The portfolio later went to the current finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadei. He was divested of the portfolio after he had a kidney transplantation. The department was then handed over to Naveen’s close friend A.U. Singh Deo on May 10 last year.

But even Singh Deo could not survive in the department for long. A hooch tragedy struck on February 10. Twenty-seven people died and Singh Deo quit the cabinet.

Sarada Prasad Nayak was then handed over the charge. Nayak has been axed in the wake of the failed “coup” against the chief minister.

Ministers of the women and child development department too have had brief stints. Anjali Behera, who was heading the department last, was sacked from the ministry on May 31 following her involvement in the failed “coup”.

Earlier, the department was headed by Pramila Mallick, Bishnu Priya Behera, Kamala Das, Prafulla Ghadei and Prafulla Samal. While Ghadei and Samal are still in the ministry, Das is in political wilderness. Mallick, after being dropped from the ministry last year, has been struggling to get back into the chief minister’s good books. Behera is no longer in active politics.

The agriculture department too has had frequent changes in guard. Its ministers have been embroiled in controversies galore. Over the years, the department has been headed by Amar Prasad Satpathy, Ramakrushan Patnaik, Surendra Nath Nayak, Damodar Rout and Pradeep Maharathy. The chief minister is handling the portfolio at the moment.