Naveen Patnaik sworn in as the Odisha Chief Minister for the fourth straight term Wednesday May 21,2014

Biju Janata Dal (BJD) president Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday May 21,2014 was sworn-in as Odisha Chief Minister for the fourth straight term.

 Governor SC Jamir administered the oath of office and secrecy to the 67-year-old leader at a ceremony attended by hundreds of party leaders, workers, officials and journalists at the Raj Bhavan in state capital Bhubaneswar

Naveen Patnaik was sworn-in by governor SC Jamir alongwith a 21-member council of ministers. While 11 of these ministers are in the Cabinet rank, others were administered oath as Ministers of State (MoS).

Naveen Patnaik, who had visited his constituency, Hinjili in Ganjam district, to thank the electorate on Tuesday May 20,2014, took his oath after seeking the blessings of lord Jagannath. 

Naveen Patnaik's Cabinet is a healthy mix of youth and experience and also includes two women, veteran Usha Devi from Chikiti and Snehangini Chhuria from Attabira.

The Cabinet ministers include Badri Narayan Patra, who won with the highest margin from Ghasipura in Keonjhar district, Bijayshree Routray, Bikram Kesari Arukh, Damodar Rout, Debi Prasad Mishra, Usha Devi, Pradeep Maharathy, Lal Behari Himirika, Pushpendra Singhdeo, Jogendra Behera and Pradip Amat.

Amat was speaker in the last Assembly. 

The Ministers of State who were sworn-in on Wednesday were Arun Sahu, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, Ramesh Majhi, Ashok Panda, Sanjay Das Burma, Pranab Prakash Das, Pradeep Panigrahy, Snehangini Chhuria, Prafulla Mallick and Sudam Marandi.

As many as 8 of those who took the oath are ministers for the first time.

As many as 18 of the state's 30 districts have found representation in the new council of ministers, to be sworn-in on Thursday May 22,2014

The biggest beneficiary, expectedly, has been Ganjam, the chief minister's home district, with three MLAs from the region getting a place in the ministry.

While there are two MLAs representing Puri, the other 16 districts have one each.

The other districts to have found favour are Jagatsinghpur, Bhadrak, Cuttack, Keonjhar, Rayagada, Kalahandi, Bargarh, Angul, Nabarangpur, Kendrapara, Nayagarh, Khurda, Bolangir, Jajpur, Mayurbhanj and Boudh.

Naveen Patnaik steered the BJD to a landslide victory in the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls as the party won 117 of the 147 Assembly seats and 20 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats

Note

Once considered a political novice and a reluctant inheritor of Biju Patnaik's mantle in 1997 after Biju Patnaik ,his father's death

became a Lok Sabha member winning the by-election from Aska.

A year later, Naveen floated the Biju Janata Dal, a regional party named after his father and entered into alliance with BJP to become a cabinet minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1998

In 2000, when the BJD-BJP alliance was voted back to power in Odisha Patnaik was made chief minister.

The combine retained power after 2004.

However, ties between BJD and BJP soured in the aftermath of Kandhamal riots 2008 and Patnaik severed the alliance with the BJP on the eve of the 2009 general elections.
 
The move not only strengthened Naveen Patnaik's secular credentials, but also propelled BJD's poll prospects in 2009 when it won 14 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats and 103 of the 147 seats in the Odisha Assembly

Since 2009,Naveen Patnaik's BJD witnessed many upheavals including an alleged coup bid, but the BJD supremo overcame all adversities to finally register an unprecedented record victory this time as Odisha remained untouched by the Narendra Modi wave that swept the country