Mohan Charan Majhi took the oath as chief minister of Odisha’s first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government on Wednesday, in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The oath-taking ceremony was held at Janata Maidan in Bhubaneshwar. Along with Majhi, two deputy chief ministers – Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo and Pravati Parida – were also sworn in.
Odisha Governor Raghubar Das administered the oath to the first BJP Chief Minister of the state along with his deputies.
Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader Naveen Patnaik, who served as Chief Minister of Odisha for 24 years, was also present on the stage.
The ceremony was attended by several high-profile leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Ashwini Vaishnaw, and Nitin Gadkari, as well as chief ministers from several other states.
This is the first BJP government in Odisha after its emphatic performance in the recently concluded assembly polls, in which it defeated the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), ending its 24-year rule.
Majhi said that protecting Odisha’s ‘Asmita’ (pride) will be the priority of the new government.
The 52-year-old Majhi belongs to the Santali tribe and hails from the state’s Keonjhar district. He was elected leader of the BJP legislature party in Odisha on Tuesday.
Majhi began his political career as a sarpanch from 1997 to 2000. He was elected to the state assembly for the first time in 2000 from Keonjhar and was re-elected in 2004. From 2005 to 2009, he served as the government deputy chief whip in the BJD-BJP coalition government. He was again elected as an MLA in 2019 and retained the seat in the recent polls, defeating BJD’s Mina Majhi by 11,577 votes.
The BJP won 78 of the 147 seats in the Odisha assembly polls.
(Inputs from ANI)