Lucknow, March 18: When Trivendra Singh Rawat took over as BJP chief minister of Uttarakhand today, he might have been excused for wondering momentarily whether he was leading a Congress government.

Of the nine ministers sworn in with Trivendra, five - Satpal Maharaj, Harak Singh Rawat, Subodh Uniyal, Yashpal Arya and Rekha Arya - were previously with the Congress.

Harak, Subodh and Yashpal were ministers in the government of Trivendra's predecessor Harish Rawat.

Satpal had defected to the BJP in 2014 when the Congress leadership picked Harish instead of him to replace Vijay Bahuguna as its chief minister in the mountain state.

The other four had joined the BJP along with eight other Congress MLAs in April 2016.

They had unsuccessfully tried to pull the Congress government down with the help of the BJP and eventually lost their membership of the Assembly under the anti-defection law.

Harak had been specifically targeted by the BJP when it ran a campaign against alleged corruption in the Congress government. But after April 2016, the BJP changed tack and confined its attacks to Harish Rawat's "misrule".

"Those who were corrupt during Congress rule have washed their sins in the holy waters of the Ganga and been appointed ministers in the BJP government," Harish scoffed today.

"This is the first indication of the lie that the BJP wants to deliver clean governance. But we have lost the election and are willing to play the role of a constructive Opposition."

Trivendra took his oath of office in Dehradun in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.

His remaining four ministers are: Prakash Pant, Madan Kaushik, Arvind Pandey and Dhan Singh Rawat. While seven of the new ministers received cabinet rank, Rekha and Dhan were sworn in as ministers of state.

Trivendra is the eighth chief minister of the state, which was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in the summer of 2000.

The BJP holds 57 of the 70 Assembly seats in Uttarakhand, the Congress has 11 and there are two Independents.