Yogi Adityanath to take oath on March 25, top BJP leadership to attend: Report

Yogi Adityanath, who led the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to victory in the recently-held Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, will be sworn-in for his second term as the chief minister on March 25.

The venue for the oath-taking ceremony will be state capital Lucknow’s Ekana cricket stadium, which the Yogi government, in its first term, renamed after BJP stalwart and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in November 2018, the report further said.

Top BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh, party president JP Nadda, chief ministers of BJP-ruled states, office bearers of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) etc. are expected to attend the ceremony. Invitation will be extended to top opposition leaders as well, including three former chief ministers–Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati, Samajwadi Party (SP) patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and Adityanath’s predecessor, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.

From the Congress’ side, party president Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, will be invited, the report said.

Beneficiaries of various schemes of the first Yogi government, including women, will also be invited, it added.

The BJP, which won 255 seats (273 with allies) in the 403-member assembly, created history by becoming the first government in the country’s most populous state, since 1987, to be re-elected after completing its first term. Its main challenger, the SP-led alliance, won 125 seats, of which 111 went to the Akhilesh Yadav-led party.

UP went to polls in seven phases; voting took place on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27, March 3 and 7. The counting of votes was held on March 10.