PM Modi To Take Oath On Saturday

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take oath for a third time on Saturday, and in so doing, become the first (and only) three-term leader of the country since Congress stalwart Jawaharlal Nehru. Mr Modi met President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi to submit his resignation, and that of his cabinet. He was then requested to continue in his role till the swearing-in.

Mr Modi retained his Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh's Varanasi, defeating the Congress' Ajay Rai by less than 1.5 lakh votes to become a three-time MP from the temple town.

Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party - which claimed 282 seats in 2014 and 303 in the 2019 election won 240 seats this time - 32 short of the 272-majority mark. It will now rely on the 53 seats won by members of the party-led National Democratic Alliance to seal a third term. 

Earlier today Mr Modi - who last evening confirmed the NDA would stake claim to form the government for a third time, calling the poll results a "victory of the world's largest democracy" - chaired a meeting of the Union Cabinet for the final time in this government. 

The BJP had set itself an ambitious target of 370 seats (400+ including NDA partners), but they were pegged back by the opposition alliance - the Congress-led INDIA bloc. The opposition has 232 seats after a stellar performance that saw it defy exit pollsters and slash the BJP's advantage in key states. 

The BJP, though, had enough in its tank to finish as the single-largest party yet again, thanks to good results from Odisha (20 of 21 seats), Andhra Pradesh (21 of 25), Madhya Pradesh (29 of 29), and Bihar (30 of 40), to offset the losses there and in other states.

Sources said the Congress and the INDIA bloc are considering a late approach to both Mr Naidu and Nitish Kumar. The Congress has been circumspect on this topic, but senior coalition leaders have suggested this is a possible course of action. Nitish Kumar has not commented on such speculation, but Mr Naidu has, telling reporters in Delhi today, "I am in the NDA... am going for the meeting."_NDTV