The first Bharatiya Janata Party government in Odisha will be sworn in on June 12, party leaders said on Sunday, according to PTI.

The ceremony was earlier slated to be held on Monday. However, the date was postponed as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was busy with his oath-taking ceremony on Sunday and would meet party MPs the next day.

The Hindutva party has, however, not yet stated who the chief minister of Odisha will be. A BJP legislature party meeting will be held at 11 am on Monday in the state capital of Bhubaneswar, BJP MLA and former state Leader of Opposition Jaynarayan Mishra told the Economic Times.

The BJP won 78 out of Odisha’s 147 Assembly seats in the recently-concluded Assembly election. The Biju Janata Dal, which was in power in the state since March 2000, got 51 seats. A party or coalition needs 74 seats to form government in the Odisha Legislative Assembly.

A day after the result, Biju Janata Dal chief Naveen Patnaik submitted his resignation as the chief minister to Governor Raghubar Das in Bhubaneswar. Patnaik held the top post for over 24 years, becoming the second-longest-serving chief minister in India since Independence.

The Assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim were held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha polls. The elections in Odisha were held in four phases on May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1, while those in Andhra Pradesh were held in a single phase on May 13.


Also read: How did the BJP sweep Odisha?