The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance or NDA is likely to meet on Friday to formally elect PM Narendra Modi as their leader, media reports said.
According to reports, Telugu Desam Party supremo N Chandrababu Naidu has directed party leaders to attend the meeting in New Delhi.
The TDP alone clinched 16 seats in Andhra Pradesh in the recently held Lok Sabha polls.
After being elected as the NDA’s leader, Narendra Modi will take the oath of office for his third term as prime minister at a swearing-in ceremony likely to be held on Sunday, June 9, reported Hindustan Times.
Modi 3.0 with a weaker mandate and strings
Narendra Modi on Tuesday returned for a rare third consecutive term in office with his allies, but fell short of an absolute majority for his BJP, in an election that gave a new lease of life to a Congress-led disparate Opposition bloc, INDIA, as the anti-Modi union halted the saffron juggernaut to under 300.
Modi, who is set to be the second Prime Minister after Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to return to office for a third consecutive term, had kickstarted the campaign for his BJP, setting the target for 370 seats and 400 overall for the NDA alliance.
Quite contrary to the “Abki bar 400 par” or “400 plus seats this time” slogan, Modi’s BJP failed to achieve the majority mark (272) on its own, paving way for a return of a coalition government trend after a decade.
In what would trigger the debate of anti-incumbency setting in, Modi’s BJP could manage to get to 240 while NDA touched 293, a comfortable figure to run the government but at the mercy of regional parties like TDP and JD-U.
The celebrations, however, are louder in the INDIA Bloc after they bagged a higher than expected number of seats. The INDIA bloc has won 234 seats, offering a tough fight to the incumbent.
Though several political pundits, opinion and exit polls had almost written off the opposition, Congress (99 seats) led INDIA, comprising several key regional players, put up a brave fight.
