Bharatiya Janata Party leader Mohan Charan Majhi took oath as the chief minister of Odisha on Wednesday. He will lead the Hindutva party’s first government in the state.

KV Singh Deo and Pravati Parida were sworn in as the deputy chief ministers. Their oath of office and secrecy were administered by Odisha Governor Raghubar Das.

The decision to make Majhi the chief minister was taken at a meeting of the BJP’s legislative party on Tuesday. Majhi is a four-time MLA from the Keonjhar Assembly constituency in Kendujhar district.

Parida is the MLA from the Nimapara constituency while Deo represents the Patnagarh Assembly seat.

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. The Congress won 14 seats. A party or coalition needs 74 seats to form government in the Odisha Legislative Assembly.

The Biju Janata Dal had a vote share of 40.22%, just ahead of the BJP’s 40.07%.

A day after the result, Biju Janata Dal chief Naveen Patnaik submitted his resignation as the chief minister to Governor 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 Odisha were held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections, which the BJP also swept in Odisha, winning 20 of 21 seats, while the Congress secured just one. The Biju Janata Dal failed to win any Lok Sabha seats despite securing a 37.5% vote share. The party had won 12 Lok Sabha seats in 2019.

Also read: How did the BJP sweep Odisha?