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70-member Vajpayee ministry sworn in

Special Correspondent in New Delhi

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sworn in as prime minister at 1031 hours today.

The oath of office and secrecy was administered by President K R Narayanan.

Sixty-nine ministers were also sworn in by the President. Of these, at least 40 ministers are from the BJP.

Senior BJP leaders Yashwant Sinha, Lal Kishenchand Advani, Jaswant Singh, Jagmohan, Murli Manohar Joshi, Pramod Mahajan, Satyanarain Jatia, Ram Naik, Juel Oram, Kashiram Rana, P R Kumaramangalam, Sunderlal Patwa, Shanta Kumar, Dravida Munnetra Kazagham leaders Murasoli Maran, T R Balu, Janata Dal-United leaders George Fernandes, Nitish Kumar, Ram Vilas Paswan, Sharad Yadav, Trinamul Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, Shiv Sena leaders Manohar Joshi, Suresh Prabhu, Biju Janata Dal leader Naveen Patnaik and independent Ram Jethmalani have also been sworn in as Cabinet ministers.

However, Union Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde and Union Industry Minister Sikander Bakht have been dropped from the Cabinet.

Independent Maneka Gandhi, BJP leader Arun Jaitley, Vasundhara Raje, Uma Bharti, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazagham leader M Kannapan, N T Shanmugham, BJD leader Dilip Ray have been sworn in as ministers of state with independent charge.

BJP leader O Rajagopal, Ramesh Bais, Bandaru Dattatreya, Ch Vidyasagar Rao, Santosh Gangwar, Chaman Lal Gupta, Bijoya Chakravarty, Shriram Chauhan, Jaysinghrao Gaikwad Patil, Dr Vallabhbhai Ramjibhai Kathiriya, Faggan Singh Kulaste, V Dhananjay Kumar, Bangaru Laxman, Rita Verma, Sumitra Mahajan, Subash Maharia, Babulal Marandi, Jayawanti Mehta, Muni Lall, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, Trinamul Congress leader Ajit Kumar Panja and DMK's A Raja were among those sworn in as ministers of state.

Present at the swearing in ceremony were several chief ministers including Nara Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra), M Karunanidhi (Tamil Nadu), Narayan Rane (Maharashtra) and Keshubhai Patel (Gujarat).

THE COMPLETE LIST

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