Vijayawada ): Telgugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo N Chandrababu Naidu took oath as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday. The ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Ministers Amit Shah, JP Nadda, and Nitin Gadkari among others.
After taking oath as Chief Minister Naidu shared a hug with PM Modi on stage. This is the fourth time that Naidu is assuming charge as Andhra Chief Minister and the second time after the bi-furcation in 2014.
Naidu became chief minister first in 1995, before the Andhra bifurcation and he led the state until 2004 for nine consecutive years. The TDP supremo returned as the chief minister of the bifurcated Andhra in 2014 and served until 2019
Andhra governor S Abdul Nazeer, former Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundarajan were present at the swearing-in. Naidu's son and TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh, Union Minister Rammohan Naidu, actors Chiranjeevi, Rajnikanth, Nandamuri Balakrishna were also present on occasion.
Naidu had led the TDP- BJP-Janasena National Democratic Alliance to a landslide victory in the Assembly as well as parliamentary elections. TDP holds the majority in Andhra Pradesh 175-member assembly with 135 MLAs, while its allies, the Janasena Party, has 21 and BJP has eight. The opposition YSR Congress Party has 11 legislators.
As per a list released by the TDP, the Cabinet will have 21 MLAs from the TDP, three from the Janasena Party and one from the BJP. The TDP MLAs who will be taking oaths include Nara Lokesh, Kinjarapu Atchannaidu, Nimmala Ramanaidu, NMD Farooq, Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, Payyavula Kesav, Kollu Ravindra, Ponguru Narayana, Vangalapudi Anita, Anagani Satya Prasad, Kolusu Parthasaradhi, Kola Balaveeranjaneya Swamy, Gottipati Ravi, Gummadi Sandhyarani, BC Janardhan Reddy, TG Bharath, S Savitha, Vasamsetty Subhash, Kondapalli Srinivas and Mandipalli Ramprasad Reddy.
Konidela Pawan Kalyan, Nadendla Manohar and Kandula Durgesh will be swearing-in as ministers representing the Janasena Party, while Satya Kumar Yadav is the lone MLA from BJP taking oath today as minister in the Naidu cabinet.