Vijayawada (Andhra Pradesh) : Telugu Desam Party supremo Chandrababu Naidu is set to be sworn in on Wednesday as the 18th Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.
The swearing-in of Naidu and his cabinet will be attended by BJP’s top brass, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Ministers, Amit Shah and JP Nadda, among others.
A 24-member Cabinet will also take oath today alongwith the Chief Minister at around 11.27 am in a ceremony held at Kesarpalli IT Park in Gannavaram Mandal on the outskirts of Vijayawada.
Naidu had led the TDP- BJP-Janasena National Democratic Alliance to a landslide victory in the Assembly as well as parliamentary elections The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo was unanimously elected the leader of the NDA in the Andhra Legislative Assembly on Tuesday at a meeting of the TDP, Janasena Party and BJP legislators.
On Tuesday, Andhra Governor S Abdul Nazeer invited Naidu to form the government. This will be the fourth time Naidu assumes charge as Andhra Chief Minister and the second time after the bi-furcation in 2014. Heavy security arrangements have been put in place as part of the oath-taking ceremony.
Amit Shah and Nadda were received by Naidu’s son and TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh at the Gannavaram airport last evening, ahead of the swearing-in ceremony.
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.
Naidu first assumed the role of chief minister 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.
The YSR Congress, led by Jagan Mohan Reddy, rose to power in 2019, dethroning Naidu’s TDP and winning 151 of the 175 seats.
Earlier, addressing the legislators’ meeting in Vijayawada on Tuesday, Naidu thanked the people and supporters for the historic win. He also said that Amravati will be the capital of Andhra Pradesh.
“There will be no situation where we will be playing with states future saying three capitals , our capital is Amaravati and Amaravati will continue to be our capital. Vishakapatnam will be financial capital and will make it developed city.”
“This much victory and satisfaction I never had before. In Delhi, everyone respected us because of the mandate the people had given us. In 1994, there were one-sided elections. Even then, we did not win this many seats. We won 164 seats. We only lost 11 seats. That is, we won 93 per cent. The average voting percentage was 57 per cent in these elections. Our responsibility has increased,” Naidu said.
He emphasised that it will be the people’s regime in the state, and each decision will be in the interest of the people. Making it clear that there will be no vindictive politics like demolishing the Praja Vedika and giving the slogan of three capitals, the Chief Minister-designate said that the positive government will function most responsibly.
“There will be no space for any kind of unrest. In my four-decade-long political career, I have seen several elections but the just-concluded polls are history. And now the entire responsibility lies on all of us to rise up to the expectations of the people. I salute all the people of the state for the verdict that they have given,” Chandrababu said.