Lucknow, March 18 (Agencies): Yogi Adityanath, a priest-turned-politician who has served five terms as a Lok Sabha member, will be the chief minister of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s first government in Uttar Pradesh in 15 years. The BJP, which won 312 seats in the 403-member House in the just concluded elections, wiping out the Samajwadi Party, said two deputy chief ministers would aid Adityanath. One of the deputies is Keshav Prasad Maurya, a Lok Sabha member and head of the BJP’s state unit who had earlier been seen as a chief ministerial candidate. When the newly-elected BJP MLAs got together on Saturday afternoon to elect a leader, among those being projected as chief minister were Union minister Manoj Sinha, Union home minister Rajnath Singh (who has been the state's chief minister earlier) and Suresh Khanna, who has been an MLA for eight terms. The new chief minister and his cabinet will be sworn in on Sunday at 2.15pm.

Source: The Telegraph March 18, 2017 14:48 UTC