Shimla to see a grand swearing-in

Prime Minister, Union Ministers, Chief Ministers to attend Jairam Thakur’s oath-taking function

December 26, 2017 10:30 pm | Updated December 27, 2017 12:42 am IST

BJP’s newly elected leader of the legislative Jairam Thakur addressing media parsons in Shimla on Monday.. Photo: Handout_E_Mail

BJP’s newly elected leader of the legislative Jairam Thakur addressing media parsons in Shimla on Monday.. Photo: Handout_E_Mail

For the first time, a Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh will be sworn in before an audience of the Prime Minister, several Union Ministers and around a dozen Chief Ministers.

In addition, BJP president Amit Shah and party veteran L.K. Advani will also be present when Jairam Thakur takes the oath of office on Wednesday.

The ceremony will be held at the historical Ridge Maidan here.

Special arrangements are being made to telecast the ceremony live with a number of huge screens placed at several places in the State capital.

Only a limited number of people will be accommodated at the venue.

Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, Anant Kumar, Thawar Chand Gehlot and Ram Lal are expected to reach the State capital for the event. They will be joined by the Chief Ministers of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Goa, Jharkhand, Assam and Uttarakhand and the Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar.

More than a thousand policemen have been deployed across the city with the Special Protection Group and other agencies supervising arrangements at the venue. Buses bringing in supporters from nearby districts will be stopped at a distance in various suburbs and people will have to walk to reach the heart of the town, the administration said.

Shimla is already crowded with an influx of tourists for the Christmas holidays — all the hotels and guest houses are running at full occupancy. Chief Minister-designate Jairam Thakur and Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda on Tuesday monitored the arrangements for the arrival of the party leaders.

Among the Cabinet ministers of the new BJP government expected to take oath along with Mr Thakur on Wednesday are Rajeev Bindal, Suresh Bhardwaj, Mahinder Singh Thakur, Ramesh Dhawala, Krishan Kapoor, Anil Sharma, Sarveen Chowdhary, Vipin Parmar, Virender Kanwar, Govind Thakur and Ram Lal Markanda.

Meetings on Cabinet formation took place on Tuesday at the State Guest House at Peterhoff with several aspirants already camping there. Former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal has returned from Delhi after meeting the central observers and senior BJP leaders.

Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda had many rounds of meeting with the Chief Minister-designate and the State party in-charge Mangal Pandey.

Likely names

Rajeev Bindal, Suresh Bhardwaj, Mahinder Singh Thakur, Ramesh Dhawala, Krishan Kapoor, Anil Sharma, Sarveen Chowdhary, Vipin Parmar, Virender Kanwar, Govind Thakur and Ram Lal Markanda are expected to take oath along with the Chief Minister. The party is trying to balance caste, regional and factional demands in the Cabinet, a top source said.

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