Nallari Kiran Kumar Reddy, a YSR loyalist and former Andhra Pradesh Assembly Speaker, was on Thursday sworn-in as the 16th chief minister of the state.
Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan administered the oath of office and secrecy to 50-year-old Kiran Kumar Reddy, who was chosen late on Wednesday night as the leader of Congress Legislature Party in place of Konijeti Rosaiah who resigned from the chief minister's post on Wednesday.
Union ministers and party observers M. Veerappa Moily, Ghulam Nabi Azad, outgoing chief minister Rosaiah and a host of Congress leaders, MLAs and MLCs attended the brief swearing-in ceremony in the Darbar Hall of Raj Bhavan.
Only Kiran Kumar, a four-time MLA, took oath today and the Council of Ministers is expected to be reconstituted after he holds consultations with the Congress high command, party sources said.
The new chief minister is expected to leave for New Delhi later in the day to call on AICC president Mrs Sonia Gandhi, who chose him for the job after being authorised by the CLP.
He would also meet other top leaders of the AICC in New Delhi, party sources said. Earlier in the day, former ministers, MPs, MLAs, MLCs and several Congress leaders met Kiran Kumar at his Banjara Hills residence and congratulated him.
State chief secretary S.V. Prasad and director general of police K. Aravinda Rao led the bureaucrats in greeting the new chief minister.
Mr Rosaiah, 77, had resigned on Wednesday in a surprise move in the midst of dissidence within the party and attacks on Mrs Gandhi and the Congress by media outlets owned by late chief minister Y.S.R. Reddy’s son Jaganmohan.
The move is also being seen as Congress' political management ahead of the submission of the Srikrishna panel report on the issue of Telangana by December 31.
Mr Rosaiah, the stop-gap chief minister who took over in the aftermath of YSR's death in September 2009, had resigned citing personal reasons.
Kiran Reddy, who hails from Rayalaseema region, was elected from Pileru constituency in Chittoor district.