Telugu Desam Party President Chandrababu Naidu will take over as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh today. Governor ESL Narasimhan will administer him the oath of office and secrecy at a function to be held at Kaza village between Vijayawada and Guntur in the evening. Our correspondent reports that some cabinet ministers will also be sworn-in along with the Chief Minister. A host dignitaries including several central ministers and Chief Ministers of some states will attend the function. The TDP won 102 seats in the 175-member Assembly of the residuary Andhra Pradesh after the creation of Telangana as a separate state.

This is for the first time in the history of Andhra Pradesh that a Chief Minister is taking oath away from the state capital. Hyderabad will continue as the capital of Andhra Pradesh for 10 years despite the bifurcation of the state.

Elaborate security arrangements have been made in Vijayawada and Guntur. Senior BJP leaders LK Advani and MM Joshi and Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Venkaiah Naidu, Arun Jaitley, Prakash Javadekar, Nirmala Seetharaman, Sadananda Gowda, and Piyush Goyal are among those attending the ceremony. Chief Ministers of Odisha, Punjab, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan and Gujarat have also confirmed their participation.

However, YSR Congress Party President YS Jaganmohan Reddy, who will be the Opposition leader in Andhra Pradesh Assembly, is unlikely to attend the event. He said money is being lavishly spent on the ceremony when the state is in deep financial crisis. Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhara Rao is also unlikely to attend the ceremony.