Bangalore, November 12:

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s first government in the south was ushered today amid widespread celebration by thousands of party cadres who burst firecrackers and danced in the streets to drumbeats and trumpet-blaring. The nation’s IT hub turned saffron for the oath-taking ceremony of BS Yeddyurappa as the first chief minister of a BJP-led government not just in Karnataka but in all of south India.

While top BJP leaders like president Rajnath Singh and LK Advani were at hand in the Vidhana Souda to watch Governor Rameshwar Thakur administer the oath of office to Yeddyurappa, thousands of the party’s cadres and supporters descended on this city and the city was awash with saffron.

Though the oath-taking ceremony was originally scheduled at 12.10 pm, it was advanced by 10 minutes, as noon was considered most auspicious by the BJP leaders who were acting on the advice of astrologers.

Alliance partner Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) decided against its deputy chief minister or any other minister taking oath, but former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy and other former ministers attended the function. BJP veeps Yashwant Sinha and M Venkaiah Naidu as well as Murli Manohar Joshi, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Narendra Modi attended the swearing-in ceremony.