Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday took oath as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh for the fourth time in a grand ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP chief JP Nadda. Chandrababu Naidu first took charge of Andhra Pradesh as Chief Minister in 1995, then in 1999 and again in 2014. Naidu also holds the record of longest continuous term as Andhra Pradesh CM which is 8 years and 256 days. Governor S Abdul Nazeer administered the oath of office to Chandrababu Naidu.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi hugged Chandrababu Naidu soon after he took oath as the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.
Apart from Naidu, TDP alliance partner Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan, and several other leaders including one from BJP also took oath as ministers in the Andhra Pradesh government.
Pawan Kalyan, Naidu's son Nara Lokesk, BJP's Satya Kumar Yadav, TDP's Kinjarapu Atchannaidu, Kollu Ravindra, Nadendla Manohar, and Ponguru Narayana among others took oath as minister's in the TDP government. Portfolios to the newly-inducted ministers will be allotted later.
According to sources, Pawan Kalyan has been offered the Deputy Chief Minister's post. Jana Sena Party (JSP) is being offered three Cabinet berths and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) just one. In the 175-member Andhra Pradesh Assembly, the Cabinet can have 26 ministers, including the Chief Minister.
The Naidu-led TDP won 135 seats on its own while the JSP won 21 and the BJP 8. The TDP got 1,53,84,576 votes with a vote share of 45.60 per cent. The incumbent Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) led by Jagan Mohan Reddy was decimated to just 11 seats in the Assembly. The YSRCP garnered 1,32,84,134 votes in the state with a vote share of 39.37 per cent.
In the 2019 Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections, the YSRCP won 151 seats and the TDP could garner just 23 seats.
In separate meetings on Tuesday, the Telugu Desam Legislature Party and NDA partners elected Naidu as their leader. Addressing the legislators, Naidu asserted that he is committed to developing Amaravati as the sole capital of the state.
TDP sources said invitations for oath ceremony have been extended to farmers who gave their land for the Amaravati capital project and also to some people who were allegedly harassed during the previous YSR Congress regime.
A look back at Naidu's stint as Andhra Pradesh CM in the past
Chandrababu Naidu became Chief Minister of then undivided Andhra Pradesh for the first time in 1995 and served two consecutive terms. In 2014, he became the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh post-bifurcation and served in the post till 2019. Following a landslide victory in the 2024 elections, Naidu is returning as Chief Minister for the fourth term.
In the Lok Sabha polls that were conducted simultaneously, the alliance got 21 (TDP 16, BJP 3 and JSP 2) of the 25 parliamentary constituencies in the state.
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