All set for swearing-in of Naidu as CM

Tomorrow's affair looks star studded with who's who of politics and business slated to attend

The stage is set for swearing-in of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president, Nara Chandrababu Naidu, as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh (AP) on Sunday.

The 64-year-old Naidu would be sworn-in by Governor ESL Narasimhan at 7.27 PM. A small team of nine ministers are expected to be sworn-in along with him.Thereafter, according to reports, Naidu would sign the first file pertaining to waiver of farm loans.

A sprawling 70-acre site opposite Acharya Nagarjuna University campus near Vijayawada has been spruced up and AP government had made elaborate arrangements for the event . A strong contingent of 10,000 policemen would take care of the security requirements.

According to TDP, three massive daises and temporary rain-proof roofs to accommodate 50,000 people were set up at the venue, which has an estimated potential to accommodate 500,000 people. For the benefit of participants, the party had requisitioned 12 special trains to be operated from various parts of the state. SpiceJet would operate a special 200-seat aircraft from Hyderabad to Vijayawada and back on Sunday.

Besides BJP's patriarch L K Advani, several Union ministers including Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, M Venkaiah Naidu , Ravishankar Prasad, Nirmala Sitaraman, Ananth Kumar, Prakash Javadekar and Piyush Goel (Power) are expected to attend the ceremony.

Naidu is also stated to have personally invited chief ministers of Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Nagaland, Goa and Telangana.

TDP sources said that invitations have been sent to doyens of the industry including Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, Anand Mahindra, Gautam Adani, Azim Premji, NR Narayana Murthy and Cyrus Pallonji Mistry.

For the record, TDP is member of the National Democratic Alliance. The party regained power in the state in 2014 elections after a gap of 10 years by bagging 102 out of 175 seats in the AP Assembly.

Naidu will be the first chief minister of AP after the state's bifurcation. He already holds the record of being the longest serving chief minister ( 1995-2004) in the undivided AP.