Congress MLA Banna Gupta today took oath as the new minister of the Hemant Soren cabinet in Jharkhand, a fortnight after party colleague Yogendra Sao resigned in the face of accusations of founding an ultra outfit.
Gupta was administered the oath of office by Governor Syed Ahmed at Raj Bhavan here.
He became the third MLA of the ruling JMM/Congress/RJD coalition to take oath as minister this year after as many ministers resigned under different circumstances.
Sao, who held the Agriculture portfolio, had on September 12 quit after the leader of an ultra outfit, 'Jharkhand Tiger', accused him of floating it.
Sao had sought an independent and impartial probe into the allegations.
Earlier in the year, Congress MLA K N Tripathy and JMM MLA Lobin Hembram were inducted as ministers after the then Congress leader Chandrasekhar Dubey and the then JMM leader Simon Marandi had been sacked by Chief Minister Hemant Soren for their reported dissent.
Gupta is thus the 12th minister in Soren government. The cabinet can have the maximum strength of 12.
