Ahead of a ministerial expansion, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday dropped five ministers, including state Finance Minister Prafulla Ghadai, from his cabinet.
As per the chief minister's instruction, the five ministers have tendered their resignation which were forwarded to the governor for acceptance, sources in the chief minister's office said.
Besides Ghadai, tourism and culture minister Prafulla Samal, energy minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, labour minister Pushpendra Singhdeo and school and mass education minister Pratap Jena have also tendered their resignations, they said.
In another exercise to facilitate reshuffle, government chief whip Rabinarayan Pani and deputy chief whip Arun Sahu also resigend, the sources said.
Prabhat Tripathy and Sanjay Dasburma are expected to be made chief whip and deputy chief whip respectively, the sources said.
Nine new ministers are likely to be sworn in today.
The probable names are Damodar Rout, Kalpataru Das, Pratap Keshari Deo, Sarojini Hembram, Bijayashree Routray, Arun Sahu, Subrat Tarai, Rajanikant Singh and Rabi Narayan Nanda, the sources said.
