In Name of God, Gaumata, Farmers: New Karnataka Ministers Take Oath in Unique Ways

The oath-taking ceremony of Karnataka ministers who have been inducted to the newly formed Basavaraj Bommai-led cabinet was conducted at Raj Bhavan in Bengaluru on Wednesday afternoon.

CM Bommai, who took oath last week, was present at the ceremony where Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot administered the Oath of Office and Secrecy to the new council of ministers.

A total of 29 BJP legislators took oath and, interestingly, several of them did so in the name of farmers, gods and gaumata. Anand Singh, first among the defectors, took oath in the name of Vijayanagara Virupaksha and ‘Thaayi’ (mother) Bhuvaneshwari (a revered goddess in Karnataka).

While Prabhu Chauhan took oath in the name of gaumata, Murugesh Nirani, a popular leader from the Lingayat sub sect, did so in the name of gods and farmers.

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai had announced earlier that there will be no Deputy Chief Ministers this time. He also said former Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa’s younger son and state BJP Vice President BY Vijayendra is not among the ministers sworn-in today.

Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru before the oath ceremony, the Chief Minister had said “A total of 29 Ministers will take oath, and in the previous cabinet led by BS Yediyurappa there were three Deputy CMs, but this time there will be none as per the high command’s directions.”

“The cabinet will be a mixture of both experience and new strength,” he said, adding that in the cabinet there will be 7 OBCs, 3 SCs, 1 ST, 7 Vokkaligas, 8 Lingayats, 1 Reddy, also among them is a woman.

This is not the first time that ministers have taken a departure from the traditional practice. In May, DMK chief MK Stalin had taken oath in the “name of conscience” while being sworn in as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister. In 2020, too, Delhi Arvind Kejriwal’s cabinet member Gopal Rai had taken oath in the name of martyrs of the freedom struggle. Rajendra Pal Gautam, who was the social welfare minister in the previous Kejriwal dispensation, had did the same in the name of Buddha.

In 2016, living up to their Marxist principles, 16 out of 19 Kerala cabinet ministers, including CM Pinarayi Vijayan, had taken oath in the name of the Indian Constitution during a swearing-in-ceremony in Thiruvananthapuram.

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