Andhra: TDP's Nara Lokesh, Atchannaidu sworn-in as ministers in Naidu Cabinet

Vijayawada: Telugu Desam Party (TDP) general secretary Nara Lokesh, and party's State President Kinjarapu Atchannaidu took oath as ministers in Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu-led Andhra Cabinet on Wednesday. 

Earlier, the TDP supremo took oath as the 18th Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an event held at Kesarpalli IT Park in Gannavaram Mandal. 

After taking oath as Chief Minister, Naidu shared a hug with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on stage. 

Union Ministers Amit Shah, JP Nadda, Nitin Gadkari, Rammohan Naidu and Chirag Paswan among others, were present at the event. Andhra governor S Abdul Nazeer, former Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundarajan and Naidu's wife Nara Bhuvaneshwari were also present on the occasion. 

CM Naidu's oath taking was followed by swearing-in of Janasena Party chief Pawan Kalyan. 

TDP MLAs Nimmala Ramanaidu, NMD Farooq, Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, Payyavula Kesav, Kollu Ravindra, Ponguru Narayana, Vangalapudi Anita, Anagani Satya Prasad, Kolusu Parthasaradhi, Kola Balaveeranjaneya Swamy, Gottipati Ravi, Gummadi Sandhyarani, BC Janardhan Reddy, TG Bharath, S Savitha, Vasamsetty Subhash, Kondapalli Srinivas and Mandipalli Ramprasad Reddy also took oath as ministers during the ceremony. 

Janasena Party MLAs Nadendla Manohar and Kandula Durgesh and BJP's Satya Kumar Yadav took oath as ministers in the 25-member Naidu cabinet today. 

Former Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, NCP (Ajit Pawar) leader Praful Patel, former Tamil Nadu CM O Panneerselvam, actors Chiranjeevi, Rajnikanth, Nandamuri Balakrishna, and Ram Charan were also present. 

This is the fourth time Chandrababu Naidu assumed charge as Andhra Chief Minister and the second time after the bi-furcation in 2014. 

Naidu first assumed the role of chief minister in 1995, before the Andhra bifurcation and he led the state until 2004 for nine consecutive years. The TDP supremo returned as the chief minister of the bifurcated Andhra in 2014 and served until 2019. 

Naidu had led the TDP- BJP-Janasena National Democratic Alliance to a landslide victory in the Assembly as well as parliamentary elections. 

TDP holds the majority in Andhra Pradesh 175-member assembly with 135 MLAs, while its allies, the Janasena Party, has 21 and BJP has eight. The opposition YSR Congress Party was confined to a meagure 11.