Narendra Modi has taken oath as the Prime Minister of India despite it had been feared that he might not fulfill his 3rd term of ascending as the PM. He took oath in President’s House in New Delhi on Sunday evening in the presence of around 10,000 local and foreign gusets. Among the people present there, Bangladesh PM Sheikh hasina and some other head of the state and the government of some countries.
After taking the oath, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called PM Sheikh Hasina along with other heads of governments and state of the neighboring countries to the stage.
At the center of interest was the allocation of ministries positions in Modi's new coalition cabinet. A great get together was seen in Rashtrapati Bhavan at the center of the swearing-in ceremony. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge was present. Representatives from various levels of India were present along with Bollywood heroes like Shah Rukh Khan and Akshay Kumar.
Modi was under a lot of pressure before being sworn in for a third consecutive term as prime minister of India, the world's largest democracy. He was the only second person to ascend in the post of Prime Minister of India after Jawaharlal Nehru. Negotiations about the ministry are going on with the coalition partners for two consecutive days. Finally, in the morning, Modi organized a tea party with potential ministers at his residence. Later in the morning, he first went to Rajghat to pay his respects at the tomb of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the Indian nation. From there he went to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's memorial 'Sadaiv Atal,' then to the National War Memorial. The three chiefs of the defense forces paid tribute to the brave soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the country.
According to BJP sources, they are keeping 'important' ministries like home, defence, finance, education and culture in their own hands. Several other key ministries are likely to be shared among other alliance partners like Chandrababu Naidu's TDP, Nitish Kumar's JDU, Chirag Paswan's LJP(R), Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena, HD Deve Gowda's JDS and Jayant Chowdhury's RLD.
At the end of the swearing-in ceremony, there was a grand feast. Special vegetables of Rajasthan, dum biryani, kulfi, five kinds of bread, paratha. Apart from this, Punjabi food was also on the list, along with millet khichuri, eight kinds of sweets Rasmalai, chickpea sweet, is the famous ghewar of Rajasthan as the course stopper were provided at the feast. Narendra Modi, his new cabinet members and newly elected NDA MPs dined on these items after taking oath. BJP president JP Nadda organized a banquet for them. All this eating and drinking are done there.
72-member cabinet: Members of the 72-member cabinet were sworn in separately in the evening immediately after Modi's oath-taking. Like the outgoing cabinet, BJP's Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, S Jaishankar have been inducted in the new cabinet. BJP president JP Nadda was present at the tea party. He has been brought back to the cabinet beyond his organizational duties.
Among the 30 full ministers sworn in as members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet, 25 are from the BJP. Among them are Rajya Sabha MP S Jaishankar elected from Gujarat, Tamil Nadu's Nirmala Sitharaman, Himachal Pradesh's leader Party All India President JP Nadda. Ashwini Vaishno from Rajasthan, Hardeep Singh Puri from Punjab. Lok Sabha MPs including Rajnath Singh from Uttar Pradesh, Amit Shah from Gujarat, Mansukh Ma-Biya, CR Patil, Nitin Gadkari from Maharashtra, Piyush Goyal, Sarbananda Sonowal from Assam, Prahlad Joshi from Karnataka, Manoharlal Khattar from Haryana, Dharmendra Pradhan from Odisha, Jewel Orano, Virendra Kumar and Jyotiraditya from Madhya Pradesh, Scindia, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Bhupendra Yadav from Rajasthan, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Giriraj Singh of Bihar, Annapurna Devi of Jharkhand, G Kishan Reddy of Telangana.
The alliance's list of five full-fledged ministers includes Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu of Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Rajeevranjan (Lallan) Singh of Janata Dal United (JDU), HD Kumaraswamy of Janata Dal Secular (JDS), Ramvilas of Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and Chirag Paswan, Jitanram Majhi of Hindustan Awam Morcha (HAM).
Among the six ministers of state in the coalition parties are Shiv Sena's Prataprao Yadav, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD)'s Jayant Chowdhury, Republican Party of India (RPI-A)'s Ramdas Athwale, JDU's Ramnath Tagore, Apna Dal (Sonelal)'s Anupriya Patel, TDP's Chandrasekhar Pemmasani.
Mamata said the government will not last even 15 days: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday held a press conference in West Bengal's Kalighat and commented that the new India alliance will eventually form the government. Mamata said, “Those who talked about getting more than 400 seats, they could not achieve majority on their own. Don't think that India has not demanded the formation of a coalition government and something will not happen. We're just watching now. Ultimately the new 'India Alliance' will form the government. Before that, they will run the government for a few days.”
Mamata said with a punch, sometimes the government lasts for a day. Who can say that this government will last 15 days or not? When Mamata was asked about going to Modi's swearing-in ceremony, she said, "I have not received an invitation. We would not have gone even if we had.”
In this context, she further said that this government is being formed undemocratically and unconstitutionally. We cannot give our best wishes to this government. However, we extend our sincere greetings to the countrymen.
(The report was published on print and online versions of The Bangladesh Pratidin on June 10 and rewritten in English by Lutful Hoque Khan)
