K. Chandrashekar Rao was sworn in as chief minister of Telangana for a second straight term on Thursday, two days after steering his party Telangana Rashtra Samithi to a thumping Assembly election victory.
His party colleague Mohammed Mehmood Ali, a member of the legislative council who had served as deputy chief minister in the previous government, also took oath as a minister.
KCR, as Rao is popularly called, had said on Wednesday that he would pick his new cabinet after five or six days.
Rao, 64, had dissolved the Assembly in September and decided on an early election to try and de-link the state polls from the general election, due next summer.
His party won 88 of the 119 seats. Its effective strength has risen further following support from victorious Congress rebel L. Ramulu Naik and TRS dissident Korukanti Chander, who won on a Forward Bloc ticket.
Observers have credited Rao’s electoral success to his populist schemes such as “Rythu Bandhu”, a social security pension scheme, and a life insurance plan for farmers.
He is now expected to focus on the general election. Rao has already said the victory would allow his party to play a crucial role in national politics.
Rao has been active in the national arena over the past few months, trying to stitch a non-Congress and non-BJP front.
The chief minister has held meetings with several key Opposition leaders, including one with Mamata Banerjee in Calcutta.
“A Congress-mukt Bharat, BJP-mukt Bharat is needed,” Rao had told a news conference after his victory lap on Tuesday.
The Congress, which had formed an alliance of four parties named Praja Kutumi, won just 19 seats while ally Telugu Desam Party of Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu was reduced to two.
The Telangana Jana Samithi and the CPI, the other two partners, drew blanks.
The BJP, which deployed star campaigners like Yogi Adityanath, won just a single seat.
Rao, who had championed Telangana’s statehood movement, had invoked “Telangana pride” to counter Naidu, an opponent of bifurcation, in the run-up to the Assembly elections. Rao’s party had termed Naidu an outsider.
A sidelined Rao had left Desam and formed his own party in 2001 to fight for statehood for Telangana, which came into existence on June 2, 2014.
