Narendra Modi takes oath as 15th Prime Minister: Details here
BJP leader Narendra Modi took oath as 15th Prime Minister of India on Thursday, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan was all decked up for the oath-taking ceremony. The event is being attended by 8,000 people, including leaders of BIMSTEC countries, opposition leaders, Bollywood celebrities, and families of Pulwama martyrs. Check all live updates here.
After PM Modi, Rajnath Singh, who handled Home Ministry in the last term, took the oath. He was followed by BJP President Amit Shah, whose presence in the Cabinet became a topic of discussion. Notably, Shah contested Lok Sabha elections for the first time and won from Gandhinagar. Nitin Gadkari, who handled important portfolios, was also sworn-in.
#WATCH live from Delhi: Narendra Modi takes oath as the Prime Minister of India for a second term. https://t.co/7neznqEfNn
— ANI (@ANI) May 30, 2019
The fourth Cabinet minister to take the oath was Sadanand Gowda. After him, Nirmala Sitharaman, who served as Defense Minister, took the oath and vowed to protect the sovereignty of the nation. LJP's Ram Vilas Paswan, who was promised a Rajya Sabha seat by BJP before polls, took the oath. In PM Modi's first Cabinet too, Paswan was a Union Minister.
On May 23, BJP under PM Modi scripted history, by winning 303 seats in the Parliament. This is the first time that a non-Congress government returned to power with a bigger mandate. Quite naturally, the event was going to be as grand as the win. South superstar Rajinikanth, BJP veteran LK Advani, and Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi attended the event.
Smriti Irani, who emerged as giant-killer during these polls, also took the oath. To recall, Smriti defeated Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Amethi. She got a Cabinet seat in 2014 as well. Other ministers who took the oath were Arjun Munda, Dr. Harshvardhan, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Ramesh Pokhriyal, S Jaishankar, Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Prahlad Joshi, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Giriraj Singh, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, and Santosh Gangwar.
Two senior ministers of PM Modi's first Cabinet who won't be seen this time are Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj. On Wednesday, Jaitley wrote a letter to PM Modi asking to be excused from the new government. He cited his poor health as the reason and thanked BJP for opportunities. Meanwhile, Swaraj handled the External Affairs Ministry in Modi 1.0 government.
