Yogi sworn-in as UP CM for second consecutive term

Keshav Prasad Maurya & Brajesh Pathak take oath as deputy CMs

A total of 52 cabinet and state ministers sworn in on the occasion

Balanced Cabinet in terms of representation of women, youths, old and new faces and castes

Lucknow, March 25: Yogi Adityanath was sworn-in as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for the second term in a row in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a glittering ceremony held at Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium on Friday.

Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak were sworn-in as the two deputy chief ministers on the occasion while UP Governor Anandi Ben Patel also administered oath of office to 52 cabinet and state ministers, including both old faces and new legislators.

Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP’s National President JP Nadda, Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs Anurag Thakur and about a dozen chief ministers of NDA ruled states and several other ministers were among the dignitaries that attended the event.

The 16 Cabinet ministers who took oath of office were: Suresh Kumar Khanna, Surya Pratap Shahi, Swatantradev Singh, Ms Baby Rani Maurya, Lakshmi Narayan Chowdhary, Jaiveer Singh, Dharampal Singh, Nandgopal Gupta Nandi, Bhupendra Singh Chowdhary, Anil Rajbhar, Jitin Prasada, Rakesh Sachan, Arvind Kumar Sharma, Yogendra Upadhyaya, Ashish Patel and Sanjay Nishad.

The 14 ministers with independent charge who were sworn in on the occasion were: Nitin Aggrawal, Kapildev Aggrawal, Ravindra Jaisawal, Sandip Singh, Ms Gulab Devi, Girish Chandra Yadav, Dharmveer Prajapati, Aseem Arun, JPS Rathor, Daya Shankar Singh, Narendra Kashyap, Dinesh Pratap Singh, Arun Kumar Saxena and Daya Shankar Mishra ‘Dayalu’.

As many as 20 state ministers also took oath of office including, Mayankeshwar Singh, Dinesh Khattik, Baldev Singh Aulakh, Ajit Pal, Jaswant Saini, Sanjiv Gaud, Brajesh Singh, Ramkesh Nishad, Rakesh Rathor ‘Guru’, Manohar Lal Mannu ‘Kori’, Sanjay Gangwar, Rajni Tiwari, Danish Azad, Somendra Tomar, Ms Pratibha Shukla, Satish Sharma, Ms Vijaylakshmi Gautam , Anoop Pradhan ‘Balmiki’, KP Malik and Suresh Rahi.

Yogi 2.0 Cabinet appears to be balanced in terms of representation of women, youths, new and old faces, caste etc. Some of the ministers of the old Cabinet have been retained while some have been dropped and many new legislators have been inducted sending out a clear message that the government would be action-oriented.

The ceremony started with the national anthem as the audience stood up to sing it along with the leaders on the stage. The spirited audience at the packed stadium kept boosting the morale of the newly inducted ministers throughout the ceremony, chanting ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’.