Akhilesh Yadav becomes UP's youngest Chief Minister

Lucknow, Mar 15 (PTI): Akhilesh Yadav, son of SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, was today sworn in as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, the youngest-ever to hold the office, along with 19 cabinet ministers and 28 ministers of state. Akhilesh at 38 will be the 33rd Chief Minister of the most populous state in the country. The function, held at La Martinere College ground here, was attended by Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh's wife Dimple, Union minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, Congress leader Motilal Vohra, Jaya Bachchan, Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal, INLD leader Om Prakash Chautala, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat, CPI leader A B Bardhan and industrialists Anil Ambani and Subrata Roy Sahara. Ex-cabinet ministers Naseemuddin Siddiqui and Swami Prasad Maurya were also present. as representatives of BSP chief and former CM Mayawati, Shortly after being sworn in, Akhilesh, a post-graduate in environmental engineering from Australia, said the first meeting of his cabinet will be held in the evening to take important decisions. "Samajwadi Party will fulfill promises made in the manifesto. Law and order will be our responsibility from today. Action would be taken against officers doing injustice," he told reporters here. Attacking the Mayawati government, Akhilesh said, "Organised corruption as happened in the previous regime never took place in the state. There were restrictions during the previous government and UP is now celebrating democracy." Besides being the youngest chief minister, Akhilesh is the first chief minister whose father Mulayam Singh Yadav had held the post thrice. Akhilesh had successfully spearheaded the SP campaign during assembly elections in which the party got absolute majority winning 224 seats in the 403-strong House Cabinet ministers, who took oath, were Azam Khan, Shivpal Singh Yadav, Ahmad Hasan, Waqar Ahmad Shah, Raja Mahendra Aridaman Singh, Ambika Chaudhary, Anand Singh, Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiy Other cabinet ministers, who were sworn in, were Balram Yadav, Om Prakash Singh, Awadhsh Prasad, Parasnath Yadav, Ram Govind Chaudhary, Durga Prasad Yadav, Brahma Shanker Tripathi, Kameshwar Upadhyaya, Raja Ram Pandey, Raj Kishore Singh and Shiv Kumar Beria. Akhilesh's ministry is a mix of old and new faces. While veterans like Azam Khan, Waqar Ahmad Shah, Shivpal Yadav, Ahmad Hasan and Ambika Chaudhary have been given cabinet berths, new faces like Abhishek Mishra, first time MLA from Lucknow north seat, has also been inducted in the ministry.