Amritsar/Anandpur Sahib (Punjab), March 3 (IANS) A day after assuming office, new Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, his entire team of 17 cabinet ministers and several Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators spent the day Saturday visiting religious shrines and paying obeisance.

Badal and others went to the holiest of Sikh shrines - the Golden Temple - in Amritsar followed by a visit to famous Hindu temple Durgiana Mandir in the same city.

"We have come here to seek blessings. We will try our best to provide good governance," Badal said as his political heir and MP son Sukhbir Badal, ministers and several legislators and senior Akali-BJP leaders, escorted him.

They also paid their respects at the Jallianwala Bagh, close to the Golden temple, where British bullets killed nearly 2,500 innocent Indians during a pre-Independence protest in 1919.

At the Golden Temple, the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee - the mini-parliament of Sikh religion - joined Badal and others in thanksgiving to celebrating the Akali-BJP's return to power in Punjab.

Badal was greeted with Sikh religious war cry "Bole so nihal, Sat Sri Akal" at he entered the Golden temple complex.

He also prayed at the Akal Takht - the temporal high seat of Sikh religion - located inside the temple complex.

The Sikh clergy gave the new chief minister 'siropas' -a religious honour with a sword and a scarf -.

Badal and other Akali leaders later paid obeisance at another important Sikh shrine - Takht Keshgarh Sahib at Anandpur Sahib town, 100 km from Chandigarh, on the occasion of Hola Mohalla festival celebrated there annually.

Hola Mohalla is a Sikh religious gathering at Anandpur Sahib to coincide with the Hindu festival of Holi.

Addressing a congregation of hundreds of supporters, Badal thanked them for reposing faith in the Akali-BJP alliance and said that his government would do everything to mitigate the problems of poor people and farmers.