New Delhi: Two leaders from Odisha origin were inducted into Union Council of Ministers of Modi government 2.0 Thursday – Rajya Sabha MP Dharmendra Pradhan and Balasore MP Pratap Chandra Sarangi.
Dharmendra has taken oath as a Cabinet minister in the second term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government at the centre. He had held the portfolio of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in the first term of Modi government.
Meanwhile, Pratap Sarangi was also given the rank of Minister of State in the Union government. Sarangi has won elections from Balasore Lok Sabha seat defeating Biju Janata Dal candidate Rabindra Jena.
Both Pradhan and Sarangi took oath in the forecourt of the President’s Estate in New Delhi along with other members of the Council of Ministers.
Significantly, Dharmedra Pradhan is a Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh. He is said to have helped build a groundswell for Bharatiya Janata Party that broke into Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s BJD citadel in Odisha in 2019. BJP which won one seat in 2014 could wrest eight Lok Sabha seats from Biju Janata Dal in Odisha.
Pradhan has also played an important role in implementing Prime Minister’s Ujjwala Yojana, launched to provide LPG cylinders to every household in urban as well rural areas of the country.
The Prime Minister has dropped Odisha’s tribal face Jual Oram, who had held Tribal Affairs Ministry in the previous term of Modi government. According to sources, former Jharkhand chief minister Arjun Munda is likely to be the tribal face in the Modi government.