Historic! BJP for the first time forms government in Nagaland; Neiphiu Rio sworn-in as Chief Minister

NewsBharati    08-Mar-2018
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Kohima, March 8: Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party’s (NDPP) supreme leader Neiphiu Rio sworn in as the Chief Minister of Nagaland on Thursday. While State BJP Legislatures leader Y. Patton has been appointed as Deputy Chief Minister.

 

Notably, the swearing-in ceremony comes few days after state assembly polls in which Nagaland delivered a hung mandate. Naga People's Front won 26 seats of the 60 seats in the Assembly, the BJP 12, the NDPP 18, the National People's Party (NPP) 2 and the JD(U) and Independent one each.

Nagaland Governor PB Acharya administered the Oath of office and Secrecy to Neiphiu Rio, Y. Patton and other Cabinet Ministers at Kohima Local Ground today. Out of the 10 Cabinet Ministers, three are from NDPP, five Ministers are from BJP excluding Deputy Chief Minister who is also from BJP, one JDU and one Independent.

On this occasion, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, minister of state (home) Kiren Rijiju, BJP president Amit Shah, BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav, Manipur CM N Biren Singh, Arunachal Pradesh CM Pema Khandu, Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal and Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma were present. Interestingly, this was the first time in the history of Nagaland, the swearing-in ceremony for the formation of new Ministry was held in public arena.

After swearing in ceremony, CM Neiphiu Rio while talking to media said that he and his cabinet will work hard for the development of Nagaland. He said, “We want development in Nagaland. We will work hard to facilitate the Naga political issue at the earliest.”