Bangalore: Preparations in Full Swing for Swearing in Ceremony
Press Trust of India
Bangalore, May 29: Scripting a new chapter in Karnataka's political history, the first-ever BJP government led by B S Yeddyurappa will be sworn-in on Friday.
The swearing-in ceremony will be held at 1.50 pm in the Vidhana Soudha, the seat of power, heralding the era of governance by the saffron party in its maiden innings in south of Vindhyas.
Thousands of BJP activists were expected to throng the venue to witness the historic event of the party taking over the reigns of administration, for which the city police have made elaborate security arrangements.
A galaxy of front-ranking BJP leaders, including party President Rajnath Singh, L K Advani, Arun Jaitley, who formulated the winning stragtegy, Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj and others are expected to be present during the ceremony.
According to indications, a 15-20 member ministry will take oath along with Yeddyurappa, who led the saffron surge, which saw the decimation of its rival JDS and shatterred the dream of Congress to return to power.
BJP, winning 110 seats out of 224 and falling short by three numbers for simple majority, defeated the designs by Congress and JDS to block six independents from lending support by successfully netting them.
Sources in the party say that to ensure stability of the government, it might reward some of the independents with ministerial berths and is even not averse to accommodate all of them.
Governor Rameshwar Thakur will administer oath of office and secrecy to the new ministers.
Those expected to join the Yeddyurappa ministry are Jagadish Shettar, K S Eshwarappa, Shobha Karandlaje, Govind Karjol, C M Udasi, B Sreeramulu, S A Ravindranath, Dr V S Acharya, Ramachandra Gowda, Shankaralinge Gowda, Ramdas, Lakshman Savadi, Vishwveshwara Hegde Kageri, R Ashok, S Suresh Kumar, Yogish Bhat and Krishnaiah Shetty.
Katta Subramanya Naidu, a close confidiant of Yeddyurappa also finds place in the first list, but will be inducted later as he was away from city now.
Mamtaz Alikhan has been tipped to be the minority represantative to be inducted in consonance with the party assurance to provide representation to one of the members of this community.
BJP could not field a minority community candidate in the election.