Chandrababu Naidu sworn in as Andhra CM; PM Modi, NDA allies attend event

Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supremo N Chandrababu Naidu was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh in a grand ceremony on Wednesday (June 12) morning.

The event was held near Gannavaram Airport in Kesarapalli on the outskirts of Vijayawada. Andhra Pradesh Governor S Abdul Nazeer administered the oath of secrecy to Naidu.

Janasena chief and actor Pawan Kalyan took the oath as a minister in the Naidu cabinet. Sources say that he has been offered the post of Deputy Chief Minister.

Nara Lokesh, son of Chandrababu Naidu, also took oath as a minister.

VVIP guests

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his cabinet colleagues Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, JP Nadda, Ramdas Athawale, Anupriya Patel, and Chirag Paswan, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, NCP leader Praful Patel, several other leaders and prominent personalities were present at the ceremony.

Former Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, ex-Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, and superstars Rajnikanth and Chiranjeevi were also present.

PM Modi hugged Naidu as he assumed office. Later, the PM held the hands of Telugu megastar Chiranjeevi and Pawan Kalyan and fondly spoke to them and also had a brief conversation with former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, Tamil superstar Rajinikanth and his wife Latha on the dais.

Naidu’s fourth term in government

Naidu, who was ousted by Jagan Mohan Reddy in the 2019 Assembly polls, stormed to power this time around, with his TDP clinching 135 of the 175 Assembly seats. This is his fourth term in the chief minister’s office.

Kalyan’s Janasena, which, besides the BJP, is in alliance with the TDP in the state, has been offered three Cabinet berths while the BJP has been allotted one. In the 175-member Andhra Pradesh Assembly, the Cabinet can have 26 ministers, including the chief minister.

Naidu retained his Kuppam constituency while Kalyan and Lokesh won the Pithapuram and Mangalagiri Assembly seats, respectively.

Other ministers

Besides Naidu and Lokesh, TDP legislators K Atchannaidu, P Narayana, Kollu Ravindra, Nimmala Rama Naidu, Anitha Vangalapudi, Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, Kolusu Parthasarathy, NMD Farooq, Payyavula Keshav, A Stya Prasad, Dola Sree Bala Veeranjaneya Swamy, Gottipati Ravi Kumar, Gummidi Sandhya Rani, BC Janardhan Reddy, TG Bharath, S Savitha, Vasamsetty Subhash, Kondapalli Srinivas and Mandipalli Ram Prasad Reddy also took oath.

From Janasena, Nadendla Manohar and Kandula Durgesh, while BJP legislator Satya Kumar Yadav took oath as ministers along with Pawan Kalyan.

Committed to Amaravati project: Naidu

In separate meetings on Tuesday, the Telugu Desam Legislature Party and NDA partners elected Naidu as their leader.

Addressing the legislators, Naidu asserted that he was committed to developing Amaravati as the sole capital of the state.

He added that he had sought cooperation from the Union government for Andhra Pradesh’s development and it was “assured”.

Special invitees

TDP sources said invitations have been extended to farmers who gave their land for the Amaravati capital project and also to some people who were allegedly harassed during the previous YSR Congress regime.

Naidu became chief minister of then undivided Andhra Pradesh for the first time in 1995 and served two consecutive terms. In 2014, he became the first chief minister of Andhra Pradesh post-bifurcation and served in the post till 2019.

The NDA in Andhra Pradesh, comprising TDP, BJP and Janasena, secured a brute majority in the Assembly with 164 seats. In the Lok Sabha polls conducted simultaneously, the alliance got 21 of the 25 parliamentary constituencies in the state.

(With agency inputs)