Yogi Adityanath says will ensure all round development of Uttar Pradesh | Highlights
The BJP’s legislators in Uttar Pradesh will decide on Saturday evening who will become the chief minister of India’s largest state, exactly a week after the party crushed its opponents in a landslide victory.
Yogi Adityanath, BJP’s Lok Sabha MP from Gorakhpur, was named Uttar Pradesh’s new chief minister on Saturday evening following a meeting of BJP’s legislators in Lucknow. The swearing-in ceremony will take place tomorrow, Union minister Venkaiah Naidu announced, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah in attendance. The announcement to name the chief minister of India’s largest state comes exactly a week after the BJP crushed its opponents in a landslide victory.
State party chief Keshav Prasad Maurya, considered a front runner for the post, has been named deputy chief minister along with Dinesh Sharma, the party’s national vice-president and Lucknow’s mayor.
All arrangements have been made for grand swearing-in ceremony on Sunday at a sprawling complex on the outskirts of Lucknow. The event is expected to be attended by a clutch of senior ministers as well as the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Nagaland and Jammu and Kashmir.
Here are the highlights of the day:
9pm: Uttar Pradesh chief minister-elect Yogi Adityanath on Saturday said that he would follow Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’ slogan and exuded confidence that the state would march on the path of development.
8.10pm: Yogi Adityanath means development is now subordinated to majoritarianism of shamshan over kabristan. Harbinger to greater polarisation in 2019: Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari on Adityanath’s appointment.
7.39pm: Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh congratulates Yogi Adityanath on becoming UP’s CM-designate
7.21pm: The UP message is very clear - They want to move with Modi. This is a historic moment, a watershed moment in BJP’s history: Venkaiah Naidu says after announcing Adityanath as CM.
7.17pm: Venkaiah Naidu says PM Narendra Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah will attend the swearing-in ceremony.
7.15pm: Naidu says swearing-in ceremony will take place tomorrow at 2:15pm.
7.13pm: Union minister Venkaiah Naidu addresses media with Yogi Adityanath at his side.
7.01pm: Senior BJP leader and Union minister Kalraj Mishra announces Yogi Adityanath as UP’s new chief minister. Official Twitter account of BJP’s Uttar Pradesh unit congratulates Adityanath.
6.50pm: PTI alert says Yogi Adityanath to be the next UP CM.
6. 45pm: Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan congratulates Yogi Adityanath for being named Uttar Pradesh’s CM.
6.17pm: ANI clarifies that no official statement has been released yet naming Yogi Adityanath as UP CM.
6.10pm: Reports say Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath to be CM. Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma to be deputies.
5.43pm: Union minister Venkaiah Naidu arrives, meeting underway in Lucknow.
5.28pm: Om Mathur and Keshav Prasad Maurya arrive for the meeting.
5.21pm: BJP general secretary organisation Sunil Bansal arrives for the MLA meet along with party observer and national general secretary Bhupendra Yadav.
5. 20pm: ANI reports that Yogi Adityanath, Bhupendra Yadav, Om Mathur, KP Maurya and Sunil Bansal held a separate meeting ahead of the BJP MLAs meet.
4.46pm: Yogi Adityanath’s name crops up as the front runner in the CM race, reports NDTV. Adityanath arrives in Lucknow.
4.12pm: BJP MLAs arrive for the party’s legislature meet in Lucknow.
3.59pm: Manoj Sinha to leave for Delhi at around 6pm.
3.11pm: Manoj Sinha returns to Banaras, expected to leave for Lucknow.
2.45pm: Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya – for whom Rajasthan governor Kalyan Singh and union minister Uma Bharti are reportedly rooting for as UP chief minister – is likely to be present at the BJP legislature party meeting in Lucknow later in the day.
2.30 pm: A huge crowd has gathered at Barhat where Union minister Manoj Sinha, a frontrunner for Uttar Pradesh chief minister, has been to. The minister is returning to Varanasi.
1.45 pm: Hundreds of BJP workers have gathered at various towns in Uttar Pradesh in the first formal celebration of a thumping victory in the assembly elections. “It’s the Modi wave that had got us victory in 2014 and again in 2017. This wave will continue endlessly,” said Ashok Singh, a supporter outside BJP office in Lucknow.
12.20 pm: BJP MP Yogi Adityanath called to Delhi to meet Amit Shah. Sources say it is because he “strongly objected” to the appointment of some MLAs in the state ministry particularly Radha Mohan Das Agarwal. It was to resolve this issue and other matters related to eastern UP that he was called, according to sources.
12:15 pm: BJP supporters have begun gathering outside BJP’s state headquarters in Lucknow.
11.45 am: “Section of media unnecessarily speculating,” says front-runner Manoj Sinha. He tells ANI that he is not in the race for the CM’s post and that it is the legislature party and the BJP’s parliamentary board that decides.
11.40 am: Supporters of Keshav Prasad Maurya and Yogi Adityanath stage demonstrations demanding that the candidates they support be made the state’s chief minister.
11.10 am: “Names in the media are purely speculative, we will be meeting the MLAs today evening and then decide,” Union minister Venkaiah Naidu tells ANI. He has reached Lucknow for the party’s legislative meeting.
11.00 am: UP’s BJP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya arrives at Amit Shah’s residence.
10.00 am: Telecom minister Manoj Sinha, who represents the Ghazipur Lok Sabha seat from eastern Uttar Pradesh, offered prayers at the Kashi Vishwanath temple and Sankatmochan Temple in Varanasi on Saturday morning before leaving for his home district.
(With agency inputs)