Yogi Adityanath sworn in as Uttar Pradesh CM Sunday March 19,2017

Priest-turned politician and controversial mascot of hardline Hindutva, Yogi Adityanath was  on Sunday March 19,2017 sworn in as the 21st chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and the fourth from the saffron party, ending its 15-year hiatus

BJP state unit chief Keshav Prasad Maurya and party’s national vice president Dinesh Sharma were sworn in as cabinet ministers by Governor Ram Naik at a grand ceremony at Kanshiram Smriti Upvan in Lucknow

They will assist 44-year-old Adityanath as deputy chief ministers.

Interestingly, none of the three is a legislator in UP.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP chief Amit Shah and party veteran L K Advani were present at the ceremony, which was also attended by outgoing chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Several BJP chief ministers also attended the function.

List of newly appointed UP Cabinet ministers from the BJP

Nand Gopal Gupta Nandi
Siddharth Nath Singh
Mukut Bihari Verma
Ashutosh Tandon
Chetan Chauhan
Shrikant Sharma 
Rajendra Pratap Singh
Om Prakash Rajbhar 
Brajesh Pathak 
Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary
Dara Singh Chauhan
Dharmpal Singh
SP Singh Baghel 
Surya Pratap Shahi
Suresh Khanna
Satish Mahana
Rajesh Agarwal 
Rita Bahuguna Joshi

Leaders sworn-in as Minister of State with Independent Charge were

Anil Rajbhar
Swati Singh
Swatantra Dev Singh
Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary
Dharam Singh Saini
Suresh Rana
Upendra Tiwari
Mahendra Singh
Anupama Jaiswal

Leaders inducted as Ministers of State (MoS) were

Mannu Kori
Sandeep Singh
Suresh Pasi
Neelkanth Tiwari
Girish Chandra Yadav
Baldev Aulakh
Jai Kumar Singh Jacky
Atul Garg
Ranvendra Pratap Singh
Gulab Devi
Jai Prakash Nishad
Archana Pandey

Former cricketer Mohsin Raza was also sworn-in as Minister of State. Raza is the sole Muslim leader in Uttar Pradesh who found a position in Yogi Adityanath's Cabinet.

Previous Uttar Pradesh chief ministers

Before Adityanath, Kalyan Singh, Ram Prakash Gupta and Rajnath Singh of BJP had served as UP chief minister. Kalyan Singh, now Rajasthan governor, held the high office twice.

Like him, CB Gupta, Charan Singh, ND Tewari, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati too have served as chief minister more than once.

Mayawati has the distinction of holding the post four times, while Mulayam was CM thrice. Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav have to their credit having completed a full five-year term.

The BSP supremo has also served the shortest term of four months when she first took over the reins in 1995.

In the Congress era of 1960s and 70s , the state had witnessed stalwarts of the likes of G B Pant, Sampuranand, C B Gupta, Sucheta Kriplani, TN Singh, Kamalapati Tripathi, Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna, V P Singh, Sripati Misra and Vir Bahadur Singh holding the high office.

Of them, CB Gupta became chief minister three times.

Charan Singh, Ram Naresh Yadav and Banarsi Das served as non—Congress chief ministers with Yadav and Das holding reins of the state during the Janata Party rule.

Charan Singh, who served as CM twice, represented Bhartiya Kranti Dal.