Zee Media Bureau/Tarun Khanna and Hemant Abhishek Hyderabad: Telugu Desam Party supremo N Chandrababu Naidu took oath as the first Chief Minister of the residuary Andhra Pradesh at a grand public function on Sunday evening. 19 cabinet ministers, including three women, were also sworn in. Governor E S L Narasimhan administered the oath of office and secrecy to Chandrababu at 7:27 PM, the auspicious "muhurtam" set for the occasion. Ahead of his swearing-in ceremony, Naidu today paid tribute at NT Rama Rao Ghat. Though Hyderabad is the common capital, the Naidu government will not enjoy any executive authority, unlike the Telangana government. Several Union ministers, Chief Ministers of various states and senior leaders of BJP attended the swearing-in ceremony. Naidu took oath in the name of God in Telugu amidst thunderous cheers by party workers. Some ministers were also sworn in on the occasion. Chandrababu paid obeisance to the statue of Telugu Talli (reverential mother of Telugus) on the dais before taking oath. Braving the blistering heat, lakhs of people attended the unprecedented grand ceremony on a sprawling 70-acre open site opposite Acharya Nagarjuna University. Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, M Venkaiah Naidu, Ananth Kumar, Kalraj Mishra, Prakash Javadekar, Nirmala Sitharaman attended the function. Chief Ministers Parkash Singh Badal of Punjab, Manohar Parikar of Goa, Vasundhara Raje Scindia of Rajasthan, Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh, T R Zeling of Nagaland were also present along with senior BJP leaders L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and several others. Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha P J Kurien and Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal were also present. Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi and Telugu film stars Pawan Kalyan, NTR Junior and Kalyan Ram also attended the ceremony. Art of Living guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, badminton star Pullela Gopichand, top industrialists like G Mallikarjuna Rao of GMR Group and a host of other VIPs attended the ceremony.
Chandrababu`s wife Bhuvaneswari, son Lokesh, daughter-in-law Brahmani and other relatives were also present.
Although Naidu had sent personal invitations to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and YSR Congress president YS Jaganmohan Reddy they did not attend the ceremony. The TDP has returned to power after 10 years. On Saturday midnight, president Pranab Mukherjee withdrew the two-month-old President’s Rule in Andhra Pradesh, paving the way for installation of the elected government. This marked the end of the process of parting with Telangana after 57 years. Security arrangements and preparations had been decked up for the ceremony as the VVIPs arrived by special chartered flights and nearly 200 rooms in top-notch hotels in Vijaywada had been booked for them.