New Delhi: Yogi Adityanath took oath as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for a record second time Friday in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a packed Lucknow stadium.
Adityanath will have two deputies like in his first term – OBC face Keshav Maurya who lost the election and Brajesh Pathak who replaced Dinesh Sharma. Sharma did not contest polls this time.
Top Brahmin draw Pathak – who switched to BJP from Mayawati’s party in 2017 – was law minister in the first term.
Apart from the top three, other MLAs who took oath were Suresh Kumar Khanna, Surya Pratap Shahi, Swatantra Dev Singh, Baby Rani Maurya, Lakshmi Narayan Chaudhary, Jaiveer Singh, Jitin Prasada, Dharam Pal Singh, Anil Rajbhar, Nand Gopal Gupta, Rakesh Sachan, Arvind Sharma, Bhupendra Chaudhary, Sanjay Nishad, Ravindra Jaiswal, Gulab Devi and others.
The new team will have 16 cabinet ministers, 14 ministers of state (independent charge) and 20 ministers of state. There will be five women ministers and one Muslim, Danish Azad Ansari.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and party chief J.P. Nadda were also present at the ceremony.
The BJP came to power in UP with 255 seats in the 403-strong assembly. Yogi Adityanath is the first chief minister in four decades to return to power after completing a full term in office.
News agency ANI said more than 50,000 people watched the ceremony at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow.
Yogi Adityanath led BJP to power for a second consecutive time with the rousing slogan ‘UP plus Yogi, bahut hai upyogi’.
Born Ajay Singh Bisht in June, 1972, Yogi was a five-term Member of Parliament from Gorakhpur before he became chief minister.
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