More than a month after they were elected, the members of the 16th Vidhan Sabha were administered oath on Wednesday.
The process of administering oath to the new members was undertaken by two seniormost members of the House — Pramod Tiwari of Congress and Mitrasen Yadav of Samajwadi Party, both of whom had earlier been administered the oath by governor.
The ministers in the Akhilesh Yadav government were among the first ones to take oath, followed by women members. BJP MLA Uma Bharti was not present in the House on Wednesday.
Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who is not yet a member of the state legislature, was present in the House.
A total of 338 of the 402 elected MLAs took oath for participating in the proceedings of the state Assembly. The total strength of the UP Assembly is 404 with one member nominated from the Anglo-Indian community. The remaining members will be administered oath on Thursday.
The election of the Speaker will take place on Friday. Former Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey is tipped to be elected once again.
The total strength of UP Assembly at present is 403, including the one nominated member from the Anglo-Indian community. One seat is vacant at present following the resignation of Mr Jayant Choudhury of Rashtriya Lok Dal from Maanth Assembly seat. Mr Choudhury opted to continue as member of the Lok Sabha.
Though the results of state Assembly elections were declared on March 6, it took the Samajwadi Party government more than a month to convene the House for administering oath to members.