LUCKNOW: The oath-taking ceremony of the BJP government for the second term on Friday is likely to be attended by representatives from a wide cross-section of society including politicians, intellectuals, industrialists, actors, film directors and producers and religious leaders.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be the chief guest at the event and he will be accompanied by Union home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh, BJP national president JP Nadda and Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari.
The Uttar Pradesh government has invited over 60 business tycoons including Reliance Group chairman Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani (Adani Group), Anand Mahindra (Mahindra Group), Kushagra Bajaj (Bajaj Group), Kumar Mangalam Birla (Aditya Birla Group), N Chandrasekaran (Tata Group), Darshan Hiranandani (Hiranandani Group), Yusuf Ali (Lulu Group), Sudhir Mehta (Torrent Group), Sanjeev Goenka (Goenka Group) and Abhinand Lodha (Lodha Group).
According to the flight manifest, Kumar Mangalam Birla and Kushagra Bajaj will land at Lucknow airport in the morning.
Apart from industrialists, the team of Hindi movie ‘The Kashmir Files’ has also been invited. Actor Anupam Kher and director Vivek Agnihotri are expected to attend the ceremony. Bollywood personalities including Akshay Kumar, Kangana Ranaut and Boney Kapoor have also been sent invitations.
By afternoon, eight chief ministers from states governed by BJP and its allied parties including Madhya Pradesh’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Bihar’s Nitish Kumar, Haryana’s ML Khattar, Himachal Pradesh’s Jai Ram Thakur, Assam’s Himanta Biswa Sarma, Sikkim’s Prem Singh Tamang, Uttarakhand’s Pushkar Singh Dhami and Pramod Sawant of Goa will land in Lucknow.
Invitations have also been sent to Arunachal Pradesh’s Pema Khandu, Manipur’s Biren Singh, Tripura’s Biplab Deb, Karnataka’s Basavaraj Bommai, Gujarat’s Bhupendra Patel, deputy chief ministers of Bihar, Renu Devi and Tarkishore Prasad, deputy chief minister of Nagaland, Y Patton, deputy chief minister of Nagaland, deputy chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, Chowna Mein and deputy chief minister of Tripura, Jishnu Dev Varma.
Even former governors like Anshuman Singh and Ram Naik, along with MPs like Nishikant Dubey, Satya Pal Singh Baghel and Opposition leaders are expected to be present at the ceremony.
Leaders from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, retired government officers and saints of Prayagraj, including Mahant Hari Giri Maharaj, general secretary of Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad, Yamuna Puri Maharaj, secretary of Mahanirvani Akhara, Shri Math Baghambari Gaddi and Mahant Balveer Giri of Bade Hanuman Mandir have also been invited, apart from Yoga guru Baba Ramdev.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has personally sent invitations to over 50 seers from Ayodhya, Varanasi and Mathura. The representatives of all the 13 akhadas have been invited for the swearing-in. The Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University, Justice Girdhar Malviya and former BHU vice-chancellor, Professor GC Tripathi have been invited as well. Malviya, however, has expressed his inability to attend the swearing-in ceremony due to health issues. He has extended his best wishes to Yogi.
Yogi calls up opposition leaders to extend invitation
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath extended invitations to three former CMs of the state. He made telephone call to Samajwadi Party patron Mulayam Singh Yadav, the party chief Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati to extend the invitation.
