Narendra Modi will be sworn in on Sunday starting his third consecutive term as India’s Prime Minister. He along with his council of ministers will carry forward the economic, political and social agenda of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The oath-taking ceremony will take place in what’s being conceived as a grand event at Rashtrapati Bhavan that will be attended by personalities from different walks of life and overseas leaders. As part of a neighbourhood-first policy, invitations have been extended to the heads of state and government in the region.
Several foreign leaders will be attending the event, including Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu, Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Mauritius PM Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, Bhutan PM Tshering Tobgay and Seychelles Vice-President Ahmed Afif.
More than 200 workers engaged in the construction of the Central Vista, and especially the new parliament building, will also be guests. They will have tea at the residence of Mansukh Mandaviya, a member of the outgoing cabinet, who will accompany them to Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Invitations have also been extended to those involved in the Vande Bharat high-speed train project as well as the building of various metro systems around the country.
Modi’s 3.0 Cabinet
Among the non-BJP members of the NDA, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) are expected to get the lion’s share of ministerial berths. There is understood to be intense jostling for the Railways portfolio between the JD (U) and Lok Janshakti Party-Ramvilas (LJP-R) of Chirag Paswan.
News 18 quoted sources saying as many as 10 ministers from the last cabinet will be repeated. While Amit Shah Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, S Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman, Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal, Hardeep Singh Puri, and Ashwini Vaishnaw will continue to be union ministers, Anurag Thakur has been dropped.
BJP’s Bhupender Yadav and S Jaishankar are likely to be a part of Modi 3.0. Meanwhile, the chances of Tamil Nadu BJP President K Annamalai to be a part of the cabinet are less likely.
Other likely leaders to become cabinet ministers are Chirag Paswan, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Kiren Rijiju, Manohar Khattar, Virendra Kumar and Shivraj Singh Chauhan.
