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Vijayawada:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chandrababu Naidu shared a special moment after the Telugu leader was this morning sworn in as the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister for the fourth time.

After his oath of office, Mr Naidu walked up to PM Modi and the two leaders shared a tight hug, marking the formation of a Telugu Desam Party-BJP coalition government in the southern state.

Besides PM Modi, the swearing-in ceremony was attended by several of his cabinet colleagues, including Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, and JP Nadda.

The BJP had fought the elections in an alliance with the TDP, led by Mr Naidu, and Telugu star Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena. Mr Kalyan was also sworn in as a minister this morning.

The alliance swept the Andhra elections as well as the Lok Sabha polls, which were held simultaneously this time. They bagged 164 out of the total 175 seats in the Andhra Assembly, including the TDP’s 135 seats, Jana Sena’s 21 and the BJP’s eight seats.

In national elections, they won 21 of Andhra’s 25 seats and decimated the incumbent YSR Congress Party. The TDP also emerged as a key ally whose support was crucial for the BJP to form a coalition government at the centre after it fell short of the 272-majority mark. In the Modi 3.0 cabinet, TDP has got a cabinet berth and a Minister of State post.

The BJP and TDP had struck an alliance just ahead of the elections, marking Mr Naidu’s return to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) after six years. The TDP was a crucial part of the NDA until 2018, when Mr Naidu, then the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, decided to exit over concerns regarding financial support for the state.