Prime Minister Narendra Modi presided over the final meeting of the departing Union cabinet, on Wednesday, , which recommended dissolving the 17th Lok Sabha. This action initiated the process of forming the next government, as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), secured a slender majority in the Lok Sabha.
Soon after, PM Modi drove to Rashtrapati Bhavan to meet with President Droupadi Murmu.
“Today, the President received a resignation letter from Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and the Council of Ministers. A statement from Rashtrapati Bhavan stated, “The President has accepted the resignation and asked that Shri Narendra Modi and the Council of Ministers continue until the new Government takes office.
According to those with knowledge of the situation, the cabinet meeting to recommend dissolving the Lok Sabha took place at the prime minister’s house at around 11:30 a.m.
The current 17th Lok Sabha’s tenure expires on June 16.
In the 543-member Lok Sabha, the NDA comfortably has more seats than the majority (272–293). For the first time since 2014, the BJP, which won 240 seats, missed the halfway point and now needs the support of its partners to form a government.
The BJP victory tally was much lower than its 2019 tally of 303 and the 282 seats it had won in 2014. The Congress, on the other hand, registered a strong growth, winning 99 seats compared to 52 that it had won in 2019 and 44 seats in 2014. The INDIA bloc crossed the 230 mark, posing stiff competition, and defying all predictions from exit polls.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been granted a third term, but the BJP will require the backing of JD (U) leader Nitish Kumar and TDP leader Chandrababu Naidu, two other parties in his alliance.
When the votes from the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were tallied, the BJP was 32 seats short of the 272 majority. It failed to secure a majority on its own for the first time since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014.
The president of the Congress, Mallikarjun Kharge, has invited alliance leaders to a meeting at his home today for the opposition INDIA group. After the LS votes produced a favorable result, the INDIA bloc leaders will plan their next course of action.
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