Bhubaneswar: Dharmendra Pradhan and Pratap Sarangi from Odisha were sworn in as Cabinet Minister and Minister of State (MoS), respectively in the second Government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Pradhan, a member of the Rajya Sabha, held the Petroleum and Natural Gas, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister in Modi’s first Government.
Pradhan, 49, represents Madhya Pradesh in the Rajya Sabha. He was in charge of the party affairs in Bihar.
Sarangi, 64, is a first time MP. He is an unlike politician. A bachelor, Sarangi stays in thatched house, rides a bicycle, leads very simple life. He defeated outgoing BJD MP and industrialist Rabindra Kumar Jena and Nabajyoti Patnaik of Congress, two of Odisha’s richest MP candidates fielded against him.
He is fondly called ‘Nana,’ someone revered like an elder brother.
Modi was sworn in for a second straight term as Prime Minister after his BJP’s landslide victory in the national election this evening by President Ram Nath Kovind.
Odisha had two Cabinet Ministers in the last Narendra Modi Ministry, Jual Oram and Dharmendra Pradhan, though BJP had won only one Lok Sabha seat from the State in 2014 elections. However, the BJP has improved its Lok Sabha performance by winning eight seats out of the 21 Lok Sabha constituencies in the State. Oram did not get a Ministerial berth this time.
Besides Sarangi, former Union Minister Jual Oram, Suresh Pujari, former bureaucrat Aparajita Sarangi, Basanta Panda, Suresh Pujari, Sangita Singh Deo, Nitish Gang Deb are the BJP winners in Odisha.
