Modi’s mega swearing-in ceremony likely May 30
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi may be sworn-in for the second term on May 30 and some world leaders could be invited for it, making it an event bigger than the one in 2014 when heads of governments of SAARC countries were invited, sources said here Friday.
Before his swearing-in, Modi is likely to visit Varanasi to thank the people of the parliamentary constituency from where he has been elected for the second time with a huge margin of 4,75,754 votes.
Sources in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the Prime Minister is in no hurry for the swearing-in as he wants to invite some world leaders for the event to send a message across the globe about how the general elections embodied the strength of Indian democracy, the largest in the world.
Meanwhile, the newly-elected MPs of the BJP-led NDA will meet Saturday to formally elect Prime Minister Narendra Modi as their leader, setting in motion the process of formation of the new government. The BJP said the meeting will take place in Parliament’s Central Hall at 5 pm.
Modi is also expected to address the MPs following his election as their leader.
With Modi already being announced as the prime ministerial candidate of the alliance, the meeting is considered a mere formality.
Earlier in 2014, Modi had invited the heads of governments of all the eight South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) member countries for his swearing-in at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
After leading the party to a resounding victory in the Lok Sabha polls, the Prime Minister has received congratulatory messages and telephone calls from leaders across the world, including US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Sources in the BJP said the newly-elected MPs have been asked to reach Delhi by May 25 evening. A meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Party to formally elect Modi as its leader is likely to take place May 25 or 26.
The sources said the party will stake claim to form the government same day and oath taking ceremony is likely to take place after that.
Rahul may offer to resign at CWC meet
New Delhi: Amid speculation that Congress President Rahul Gandhi may offer to resign, a Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting is scheduled Saturday to look into the reasons for the party’s Lok Sabha elections debacle and decide on its further course of action to take on the BJP, which has grown in strength over the last five years.
Rahul Gandhi has taken full responsibility for the party’s poll defeat and there is speculation that he may offer to resign at the CWC meeting.
However, the party leaders are backing him strongly and have said that the blame for party’s poor showing cannot be put on any one individual.
At the CWC meet, Rahul Gandhi and other party leaders are expected to give their assessment of what went wrong and the remedial steps that must be taken.
There were reports of Rahul Gandhi having offered to resign Thursday, after the results, but the Congress denied those. Rahul Gandhi himself answered the question at a press conference he addressed later in the day. “We will have a meeting of the Working Committee.
That you can leave between me and the Working Committee,”
he said.
He also admitted that the road for the party was long and tough, but asked party workers and leaders not to lose heart. The Congress has won 52 seats in the elections, just eight more than the 44 it won in 2014. Rahul Gandhi was a prominent face in both the elections.
The party won a single seat (Rae Bareli) in Uttar Pradesh, but Rahul Gandhi himself failed to retain his family bastion of Amethi. The loss is likely to have implications not just on Congress’ revival plans in Uttar Pradesh, but also on his own political standing as a leader. He won from Kerala’s Wayanad.
The results show that Rahul Gandhi, who became the Congress chief in 2017, has not been able to galvanise the party to offer a strong counter against the BJP, which has handed the main opposition party its worst electoral outcomes.
The Congress scored a nil in 18 states and Union territories in these elections, and failed to dent the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, where it formed governments last year.
It delayed formation of an alliance in Bihar following which the opposition could win only one seat in the state.
Its poor electoral strategy has allowed saffron party to become a dominant force in West Bengal and strengthen itself further in Karnataka.
The party is again unlikely to have its own Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha as it does not have the minimum strength required to get the status as per rules.
Nine former Chief Ministers and the party’s leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge are among some of Congress’ prominent losers.