Assembly: Elected representatives take oath

Thiruvananthapuram: The newly-elected representatives of people took oaths to become members of the Kerala Legislative Assembly on Thursday.

The representatives were called in to take oath in the alphabetical order before protem Speaker S. Sarma who presided over the first meeting of the 14^th Assembly.

All the elected representatives excluding the protem Speaker took oath on Thursday (Mr. Sarma took oath before the Governor earlier).  Prominent among them were Chief Minister Pinarai Vijayan, Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala, veteran CPI (M) leader and the eldest member of the Assembly V. S. Achuthanandan and former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.

The Assembly has 91 members form the ruling Left Democratic Front and 47 belonging to the Opposition United Democratic Front. For the first time, a BJP representative—O. Rajagopal, became member of the Assembly.

P. B. Abdul Razak representing Manjeswaram took the oath in Kannada while Hibi Eden elected from Ernakulam took the oath in English.

Mr. Oommen Chandy and V. S. Opposition Leader V. S. Achuthanandan, who were Leader of the House and Opposition Leader in teh 13th Assembly, moves away from Centre stage in the new Assembly. However, they are seated in the front row. Mr. Rajagopal, sole representative of BJP also gets a seat in the front row.