Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Saturday said that against the background of the landslide victory given by the people to his Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), it has been decided to commence the Assembly proceedings on January 17, during the 'Uttarayana' days, considered auspicious.

The Chief Minister, who has been criticized for being deeply superstitious, said that the Assembly session will begin on 'Ekadasi' and continue till January 20.

In a related development, Mumtaz Ahmed Khan of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) will be the Pro-tem speaker of the newly-elected Telangana Assembly, whose first session will commence on January 17. Mumtaz Ahmed Khan, the senior most member of the Assembly, will take oath as Pro-tem Speaker on January 16.

Governor E S L Narasimhan will administer the oath to Khan, who represents Charminar constituency.

On the first day, the newly elected MLAs will take oath one after another and the programme is likely to continue for about two hours, according to a statement from the Chief Minister's Office.

The same day, the schedule of election to the Speaker will be announced and the nomination process will commence. The next day, the Speaker's election will take place. Later, the Speaker will conduct the Business Advisory Council (BAC) meeting which will take a decision on the Governor's address on the following day.

On January 19, the Governor will address the House. The next day the House will introduce motion of thanks to the Governor's address and adopt the same.

Elections to the 119-member Assembly in Telangana were held on December 7 and the results announced on December 11, saw the TRS sweep the polls with 88 seats, while the Congress won 19 seats. The AIMIM retained the 7 seats that it had won in the 2014 elections, while the BJP managed to retain only one out of five constituencies where incumbent MLAs were contesting.

IANS inputs