Naveen Patnaik, AU Singh Deo

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 3: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik, who reshuffled his ministry yesterday, has kept one vacancy in his Council of Ministers apparently to re-induct his Doon schoolmate A.U. Singh Deo later.

Singh Deo, a minister in the Naveen government since 2000, had stepped down from office in February on moral grounds in the wake of a hooch tragedy in Cuttack and Khurda districts. Naveen had headed the 22-member Council of Ministers. After yesterday’s rejig, the number of members in his Council of Ministers is 21.

The A.S. Naidu Commission, probing into the circumstances leading to the Cuttack-Khurdha hooch tragedy in its interim report has almost given Singh Deo a clean chit. The final report is expected anytime now.

Singh Deo, a scion of the Balangir royal family, is the son of former chief minister R.N. Singh Deo and had served in the Biju Patnaik government in 1990 as a minister. He is considered to be quite close to the chief minister and had played a key role in foiling the attempts of Rajya Sabha member Pyari Mohapatra to topple the Naveen government.

For the chief minister, who had been bogged down with party activities since the May 29 failed coup, it was back to official business today. The secretariat today witnessed a flurry of activities with Naveen holding official meetings. Officials were busy identifying space for the new nine ministers.

Sources in administrative and political circles feel that Naveen had made a careful and elaborate exercise before allocating portfolios to his new ministers. Last week, he had effected a reshuffle among senior bureaucrats keeping the expansion in view. There are six first-time ministers and all of them will have the benefit of having experienced officers as their department secretaries.

Senior bureaucrat P.K. Jena is the energy secretary and he will assist the new minister, Arun Sahoo, who is a first timer. Similarly, new panchayati raj minister Kalpataru Das will have the benefit of the experiences of Aparajita Sarangi, who had earlier headed school and mass education and higher education.

Like Das, steel and minister Rajanikant Singh has become a minister for the first time. The department is headed by Rajesh Verma, another seasoned officer. Commerce and transport secretary G. Mathivathanam will be reporting to new minister Subrat Tarai; Madhusudan Padhi to food supplies and consumer welfare minister Pratap Keshari Deb and Arati Ahuja to textile minister Sarojini Hembram.

Although no one would like to come on record, some of the veteran ministers are not happy with the allocation of portfolios. The chief minister has entrusted junior ministers, even newcomers, with heavier departments such as energy, steel and mines, commerce and transport and food supplies.

The four erstwhile legislators of the Nationalist Congress Party, who had joined the BJD following the May 29 episode, were a disappointed lot. They were hoping to get ministerial berths. Interestingly, all the four MLAs were conspicuous by their absence at the swearing-in ceremony yesterday.

Reacting to the expansion, Pyari Mohan Mohapatra today reiterated his claim that all the party legislators were loyal to him.

“It was just wishful thinking,” said sacked finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadei on Mohapatra’s comment. Mohapatra even claimed that newly-inducted health minister Damodar Rout was loyal to him. He said Rout had had been given a plum assignment by Biju Patnaik in 1990 on Mohapatra’s recommendations.

Rout, who is known to be Mohapatra’s bete noire and was dropped by Naveen in 2011 for questioning Mohapatra’s authority, retorted: “I was a minister then. He was a mere servant.” He was apparently hinting at the fact that Mohapatra was then principal secretary to the late leader.

While Pyari claimed that newly-inducted minister Arun Sahoo was “one of my prime disciples”. Sahoo was, however, emphatic in his assertion that he owed loyalty only to Naveen.