Hyderabad: The first session of Andhra Pradesh’s state legislative assembly after the division of the state started in Hyderabad on Thursday with the newly-elected members headed by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu taking oath.

He was followed by the leader of the opposition and president of YSR Congress party Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy and two deputy chief ministers China Rajappa and K.E. Krishnamurthy.

Earlier in the morning governor E.S.L. Narasimhan administered oath to veteran legislator P. Narayanaswamy Naidu as pro tem speaker. Narayanswamy was the senior most member having been elected to the House seven times.

The first day’s session in the historic old assembly building was colourful as members of different political parties were dressed in their respective official colours.

While most of the Telugu Desam members were clad in yellow shirts or carried Khandvas of that colour, the BJP members were either in saffron shirts or wore the shoulder cloth with their party’s colour and flags.

The YSRCP members were draped in the party’s colour of blue, white and green with the picture of Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy.

Film stars N. Balakrishna (TDP) and Roja (YSRCP) were among the other prominent faces who took oath as members.

The newly-elected House has members of only three parties TDP, its ally the BJP and the opposition YSRCP. There is no member of any left party in the House.

Though effective strength of the House is 175, two seats were vacant following the death of members.

After the oath taking, the House paid tributes to Shobha Nagi Reddy (YSRCP), who was elected from Allagadda assembly constituency posthumously and T. Prabhakar Rao of Telugu Desam who died of heart attack last week.

Earlier N. Chandrababu Naidu formally took charge of his office at 8.09am at his camp office in Lake View Guest House. Chief Secretary IYR Krishna Rao, other officials and ministers were present.

Naidu signed the files pertaining to the decisions taken by the first cabinet meeting at Visakhapatnam last week.

Later Naidu visited the state secretariat where the AP government employees gave him a rousing reception.

Naidu assured that during his rule, employees will not face any hardships.

It was after a long gap of ten years that Naidu set his foot in the secretariat. He never visited the place during Congress rule even as leader of the opposition to attend any important meeting. Before attending the state assembly session Naidu also visited the NTR Samadhi to pay tributes to the party founder and his father-in-law N.T. Rama Rao. His brother in law N. Balakrishna and several other minister and MLAs also visited the Samadhi.

Meanwhile senior Telugu Desam Party leader Kodela Sivaprasad Rao was unanimously elected as the Speaker of Andhra Pradesh assembly today.

With the main opposition YSRCP announcing to support his name, he was declared elected unopposed.

Minister for legislative affairs Y. Ramakrishnudu met Jaganmohan Reddy to discuss Kodela’s candidature and Jagan signed his nomination papers.

Kodela, a medical doctor by profession, has been elected to the state assembly six times. He represented Narasaraopeta in Guntur five times and this time he was elected from Sateenapally.

He also held several key portfolios including Home in the TDP governments. He belongs to Kamma community.

Kodela will take charge of his office on Friday.