 "Chandrababu Naidu's swearing-in today; Pawan Kalyan to be deputy CM?")
Telugu Desam Party Chief Chandrababu Naidu is set to be sworn in as the 18th chief minister of Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday in a grand ceremony. The event will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and other marquee guests.
Besides Naidu, a 24-member cabinet will also be administered the oath in the ceremony.
10 updates on Chandrababu Naidu’s swearing-in ceremony:
1) On Tuesday, Naidu was unanimously elected the leader of the National Democratic Alliance in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly. He was then invited by Andhra Pradesh Governor S Abdul Nazeer to form the government.
2) His party won 135 out of the 175 seats in the state assembly elections held recently and will be supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party (8 seats) and Pawan Kalyan-led Janasena Party (21 seats). The three parties are also in coalition at the centre, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Where will Chandrababu Naidu's swearing-in take place?
3) Besides Modi and Shah, Union Minister JP Nadda will also be a key guest at the ceremony. Scores of Telugu Desam Party supporters have already gathered at the Kesarapalli IT Park in Gannavaram Mandal, on the outskirts of Vijayawada. Naidu’s swearing-in is scheduled to take place at 11:27 a.m.
4) Naidu, who became the chief minister of the undivided Andhra Pradesh for the first time in 1995, will take charge of the state for the fourth time. He was also elected as the chief minister of the state in 2014 when it was bifurcated to create Telangana. However, the Telugu Desam Party faced a setback in the 2019 assembly polls when they lost to the YSR Congress Party.
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Chandrababu Naidu's first reaction after poll result
5) As the poll results declared on June 4 paved the way for his comeback, Naidu labelled it as a “win” for Andhra Pradesh and its people. “Today, my heart is filled with gratitude. I thank the people of our state for blessing the Telugu Desam Party-Janasena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance with an overwhelming mandate to serve them," he said in a post on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter).
6) The ceremony site has been heavily secured to prevent any untoward incident. Traffic has been regulated in the area, and vehicles with passes will only be allowed to visit the event venue, the police have notified.
Who will be part of Chandrababu Naidu's cabinet?
7) The Naidu-led cabinet of 24 ministers will have 21 Members of the Legislative Assembly from his party and three from the Janasena. The Bharatiya Janata Party will get one seat. Naidu’s son, Nara Lokesh, will also be a part of his cabinet among the 21 Telugu Desam Party MLAs.
8) Besides Lokesh, the Telugu Desam Party MLAs who will be taking the oath are Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, Payyavula Kesav, Kollu Ravindra, Ponguru Narayana, Vangalapudi Anita, Kinjarapu Atchannaidu, Nimmala Ramanaidu, NMD Farooq, Gummadi Sandhyarani, BC Janardhan Reddy, TG Bharath, S Savitha, Vasamsetty Subhash, Anagani Satya Prasad, Kolusu Parthasaradhi, Kola Balaveeranjaneya Swamy, Gottipati Ravi, Kondapalli Srinivas, and Mandipalli Ramprasad Reddy, news agency PTI reported.
9) Actor-turned-politician Pawan Kalyan and two MLAs, Nadendla Manohar and Kandula Durgesh, will be sworn in as ministers from Janasena. Lone Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker Satya Kumar Yadav will represent his party in the Naidu government.
Pawan Kalyan reportedly seeking deputy CM post
10) There are media reports that Pawan Kalyan is eyeing the seat of deputy chief minister in the government. Supported by millions of fans, Pawan’s party had a 100 per cent strike rate in the assembly polls. When Naidu was arrested in September in a corruption scam and jailed for about two months, it was the Tollywood hero Kalyan who stepped up efforts to energise the workers of both parties and took out huge rallies across the southern state. Kalyan had announced his party’s support to the Telugu Desam Party once the election schedule was notified in March.
Notably, during the National Democratic Alliance meeting in the old Parliament last week, Modi praised Pawan Kalyan, saying, “ye pawan nahi, aandhi hai (He is not wind but a storm),” evoking a huge round of applause for the Janasena chief.