Author: News Analysis India

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday said that they will not attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi`s swearing-in ceremony on Thursday. Both the leaders said that they cannot make it to the event due to prior commitments. Baghel posted a tweet congratulating PM Modi and said that he will not be able to attend the gala ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan due to prior commitments. “I want to congratulate PM Modi. Due to prior commitments, I will not be able to go for his oath ceremony tomorrow. I have sought time from PMO to meet…

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi gets ready to take oath for his second tenure later in the day, party president Amit Shah has started calling up likely ministers who will be inducted in the Modi Cabinet. According to reports, after a final round of consultations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah has called BJP leader from Bihar Ravi Shankar Prasad, senior leader Prakash Javadekar, Union minister Piyush Goyal and Dharmendra Prasad.  Ministers selected for oath of office will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his residence at 4.30 today, shortly before the swearing-in ceremony. The list of union ministers is likely to be sent to the Rashtrapati Bhavan soon. …

Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi will attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s oath ceremony today, sources have said. PM Modi’s second swearing-in will be a grand event at the presidential palace Rashtrapati Bhavan in the presence of politicians, world leaders and celebrities. Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi’s decision stands out after an acrimonious election that saw PM Modi and other BJP leaders relentlessly targeting them as well as Priyanka Gandhi Vadra; the Gandhi siblings hitting right back. PM Modi was condemned by the opposition for targeting even former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi – Sonia Gandhi’s husband -…

PM-elect Narendra Modi will likely hold a bilateral with Kyrgyzstan President, who arrived in New Delhi today, after the swearing-in ceremony. According to reports, the meeting is likely to be at 10.15 pm. An updated list of the likely Cabinet ministers includes names of BJP Begusarai MP Giriraj Singh, Fatehpur MP Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti. Several ministers, including Prakash Javadekar, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Ramesh Pokhriyal, have received the call from BJP chief Amit Shah to be part of the new Cabinet which will be sworn in at 7 pm today at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Smriti Irani, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal, Ramdas Athawale,…

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Monday claimed Hindu Mahasabha leader Vinayak Damodar Savarkar had first sown the seed of the two-nation theory which was later taken forward by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the late founder of Pakistan. The Congress leader claimed efforts are being made to change Jawaharlal Nehru’s idea of India and said the first Prime Minister started nuclear and space programmes and oversaw building of world-class institutions. Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel will embark on a tour of Bastar region on Thursday. Apart from participating in various programmes, he will also unveil a statue of one of ‘martyrs’ of…

Rahul Gandhi remains adamant about quitting as Congress president but scores of party workers will go to his Delhi home to persuade him to change his mind, senior leader Sheila Dikshit said on Wednesday. Sheila Dikshit, a three-time chief minister of Delhi, said she would also be among Congress leaders who would try to meet Rahul Gandhi at 4 pm. “Rahul Gandhi is adamant about resigning. But we will not accept his resignation at all. He has done good work. Winning and losing are part of life, but it is important to keep fighting,” Sheila Dikshit, who was among the…

Just before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s oath-taking ceremony tomorrow, outgoing Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has decided not to take up any active responsibility in the new government due to his poor health. In a letter to the Prime Minister, Jaitley said he had orally informed Modi about his desire to not be a part of the new BJP government so that it enabled him to concentrate on his treatment and health. “I am writing to you to formally request you that I should be allow. He has not been seen in public for at least two weeks but has been…

After reports that families of 54 West bengal BJP workers killed in alleged political violence will attend Modi’s swearing-in, a furious Mamata Banerjee has walked back on her decision to do attend the event. She tweeted that all reports of political violence in Bengal are untrue and advised BJP not to ‘devalue’ an ‘august occasion’ to score political points. BJP leader Arun Jaitley who had held key portfolios in the Union Cabinet including the finance ministry has asked to be relieved of any ministerial responsibilities for the second term. Jaitley has written a letter to Modi, stating that he would…

Time magazine, which published a cover story before the Lok Sabha elections calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi the “Divider in Chief”, has carried an editorial with the headline ‘Modi Has United India Like No Prime Minister in Decades’. The article with that headline published on its website on Tuesday, asked “How has this supposedly divisive figure not only managed to keep power, but increase his levels of support?” and answered: “A key factor is that Modi has managed to transcend India’s greatest fault line: the class divide”. The writer, Manoj Ladwa, credited Modi’s emergence as a unifier to his origins…

The 2019 national elections may be over but the country’s political discourse is still in a time warp. The political slugfest involving former Prime Ministers, the father of the nation and his assassin had barely died down when Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Monday dragged in BJP icon Vinayak Damodar Savarkar into the fight, saying that it was he who had pitched the idea of carving out Pakistan from India before Independence. “Vinayak Damodar Savarkar had first thought of the two-nation theory. His theory was taken forward by Muhammad Ali Jinnah,” Mr Baghel was quoted as saying by news…