The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has pinned its hopes on the old guard to ensure victory in next month's assembly elections in Chhattisgarh as it gave tickets to 11 sitting MLAs and renominated 13 leaders who lost in the 2018 polls.
Senior party leaders and a host of senior civil and police officials attended the swearing-in ceremony.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday scored a hat-trick of victories in the Chhattisgarh assembly elections, winning 49 of 90 seats, thwarting the Congress' bid to wrest power after a decade.
The parade began after President Ram Nath Kovind conferred the Ashoka Chakra -- India's highest peacetime gallantry award -- to Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, a militant-turned-soldier who laid down his life fighting a group of terrorists in Shopian in Kashmir in November.