Mayawati sworn-in as UP CM (Lead: UP)

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Kumari Mayawati today took oath as the 32nd Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP) after her party secured a simple majority in the just concluded Assembly elections in the State.

Lucknow, May 13 : Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Kumari Mayawati today took oath as the 32nd Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP) after her party secured a simple majority in the just concluded Assembly elections in the State.

The oath was given by UP Governor T V Rajeshwar in a simple ceremony at the lawns of the Raj Bhawan, which was attended by the outgoing Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, UP Congress chief Salman Khursheed and Mayawati's parents.

Along with Mayawati, 49 elected MLAs were also sworn in as ministers in Mayawati's Cabinet.

Maywati's cabinet includes 19 cabinet ministers, 21 Ministers of State with independent charge and nine Ministers of State, who were also administered the oath of office and secrecy today.

The list of ministers included Nasimuddin Siddiqui, Inderjit Saroj, Sukhdev Rajbhar, Ramdin Upadhayay, Lalji Verma, Indrajit Saroj, Sudhir Goyal, Ram Prasad Chaudhary, Dharam Singh Soni, Tahkur Jayveer Singh, Swami Prasad Maurya, Meghram Bhatti, Lakshmi Narain, Rakesh Dhar Tripathi, B S Kushwaha, Jai Narain Rai, Babu Chouhan, Nakul Dubey, Datia Prasad, Narain Singh,

This will be Mayawati's fourth brush with top post of the State, as her party won 206 out of 403 total number of assembly seats, ending the 14 years of coalition era in the State.

Mayawati has been the Chief Minister of the state for three times in the past-- briefly in 1995 and 1997, and from 2002 to 2003 with the support of the BJP.

Her first Lok Sabha membership came in 1989. She did not contest in this Assembly polls. She is representing UP in the Rajya Sabha.

Mayawati graduated from Kalindi College in Delhi and further studied law at the University of Delhi. She worked as a teacher before embarking on a political career under the patronage of Kanshi Ram, the founder of the BSP.

The 51-year-old daughter of a humble government employee from UP stitched a winning coalition of Dalits, Upper castes, Muslims and Backwards in a bold new experiment to get an absolute majority in the elections.

ANI