Narendra Modi confidante Anandiben Patel on Thursday took oath as Gujarat Chief Minister, a day after she was unanimously elected leader of the BJP Legislature Party.
Patel is the first woman chief minister of Gujarat.
Governor Kamla Beniwal administered the oath of office and secrecy to Patel, 73, and her ministers at a public ceremony.
Later, 20 Cabinet colleagues were also sworn in.
The newly-elected Gujarat Chief Minister said that the training she received from her predecessor Narendra Modi would help her in taking the state forward.
Besides Modi, senior BJP leaders including party president Rajnath Singh, LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiah Naidu, Nitin Gadkari and Subramanian Swamy were present at the ceremony held at Mahatma Mandir convention centre here.
Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal of Shiromani Akali Dal, an NDA ally, and BJP Chief Ministers Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Vasundhara Raje Scindia (Rajasthan) and Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh) were also present.
Modi quit as CM on Wednesday after leading the BJP to a stunning victory in the General Election. He is to be sworn in as India’s next prime minister on Monday.
The six Cabinet Ministers who were sworn-in are Nitin Patel, Raman Vora, Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, Saurabh Patel, Ganpat Vasava and Babu Bokharia.
Dilip Thakor, Vasuben Trivedi, Pradipsinh Jadeja, Chatrasinh Mori, Jaydrathsinh Parmar, Rajnikant Patel, Govind Patel, Nanu Vanani, Jayanti Kavadia, Jayesh Radadia were sworn in as Ministers of State. Four new faces inducted as MoS are – Shankar Chaudhary, Tarachand Cheda, Bachubhai Khabad and Kanti Gamit.
Three MoS in the Modi government including Purshottam Solanki, who has charges of corruption against him, Parbat Patel and Vasan Ahir were dropped.
Portfolios of the ministers are likely to be announced later in the day.
Meanwhile, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh on Thursday morning congratulated Patel on microblogging website Twitter.
