Jairam Thakur will be
sworn-in as Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh
on Wednesday. The ceremony, which is expected to be brief, will be held at the historic Ridge Ground in Shimla at 11 am, reported NDTV.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and chief ministers of at least 10 BJP-ruled states are likely to attend the swearing-in ceremony. Elaborate security arrangements are being made for the swearing-in ceremony and the prime minister is likely to address people at the Ridge. The five-time MLA from Seraj in Mandi was elected leader of the BJP legislature party on Sunday after the party ousted the Congress from power in the state by winning 44 out of the 68 seats in the Assembly polls. The 52-year-old Thakur is the youngest to head the government and belongs to the Rajput community, which has a significant presence in the hill state. [caption id=“attachment_4276945” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Himachal Pradesh chief minister-designate Jairam Thakur. Twitter @JairamThakur1[/caption] “The cabinet will have both experienced and new faces,” Thakur told reporters here in his first official interaction with reporters a day after being elected as the BJP Legislature Party leader in the Assembly. However, Thakur, a confidant of Union Health Minister JP Nadda, refused to comment on the size of the cabinet and to reveal the names of his cabinet colleagues. Thakur said that his top priorities would be restoring law and order situation, to do away with the VIP culture, to review all decisions of the previous Congress government in past three months, to minimise wasteful expenditure and to develop tourism infrastructure. The likely new ministers in his 11-member cabinet are former Cabinet ministers Rajeev Bindal, Kishan Kapoor, Sarveen Chaudhary, Mohinder Singh, Congress rebel Anil Sharma, Narinder Bragta and Ramesh Dhawala and new faces could comprise Gobind Thakur, Vikram Jaryal, Rakesh Pathania and Rajeev Sahjal, IANS reported. Sarveen Chaudhary, if inducted, will be the lone woman minister in the cabinet. With inputs from agencies