Governor Urmila Singh administers the oath of office and secrecy to Virbhadra Singh in Shimla.
IANS/Shimla
With more than 20,000 supporters cheering him on, Congress veteran Virbhadra Singh was yesterday sworn in as Himachal Pradesh chief minister for a record sixth term. Nine cabinet ministers were also sworn in.
Governor Urmila Singh administered the oath of office and secrecy to Singh, 78, who was the chief minister in 1983, 1985, 1993, 1998 and 2003.
The others who took oath were Vidya Stokes, Kaul Singh, G S Bali, Sujan Singh Pathania, Thakur Singh Bharmouri, Mukesh Agnihotri, Sudhir Sharma, Parkash Chaudhary and Dhani Ram Shandil, who is also a Congress Working Committee member.
The chief minister told reporters later that two vacancies in the cabinet would be filled shortly and the portfolios would be allocated in a day or two. “I will soon resign as the state party chief.”
Singh is a member of the Lok Sabha, which he will now quit.
The Congress last week won a majority with 36 seats in the 68-member assembly.
The new faces in the cabinet are Agnihotri, Sharma, Bharmouri, who is from the tribal belt, and two-time Lok Sabha member Shandil, a Dalit. Singh kept Congress secretary and legislator Asha Kumari, believed to be his strong critic, out of the cabinet.
The former state education minister, Kumari is accused of grabbing government forest land worth millions of rupees by tampering with revenue records.
Outgoing chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal of the Bharatiya Janata Party and his erstwhile cabinet colleagues did not attend the ceremony.
There was also no minister from the Congress-led central government at the event.
The new cabinet has three ministers from Kangra, the largest district with 15 assembly seats, two from Shimla district, two from Mandi and one each from Chamba, Una and Solan districts.
Modi to be sworn in today
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who returned to power in assembly elections for a third time, will be sworn in today, party sources said yesterday. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party bagged 115 seats, two short of its 117 tally in 2007, of the total 182 seats. The Congress won 61 seats. Party sources said the BJP leadership, including L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, were expected to attend the swearing-in ceremony. However, popular Telugu film actor and Telugu Desam Party TDP founder N T Rama Rao’s son N Balakrishna cancelled his visit to Ahmedabad to attend the ceremony after party president N Chandrababu Naidu advised him against it. Modi had personally invited Balakrishna.