The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Wednesday evening unanimously elected Narendra Modi as the alliance leader making way for him to be sworn in as the Prime Minister of the country. This will be Modi’s third successive stint as the head of the nation.
Leaders representing 15 parties which constitute the NDA met at the Prime Minister’s House at 4 PM on Wednesday and passed a resolution choosing Modi as the leader of the alliance.
It is expected that by 8 June Modi and his cabinet will take oath. Images from the meeting showed Modi flanked by leader of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) N Chandrababu Naidu on one side and outgoing BJP party president Jagat Prakash Nadda on the other addressing the meet. Naidu was sitting adjacent to Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) President Nitish Kumar signalling the importance of these two allies in the new government formation. Without the 16 MPs of the TDP, 12 of JDU and the 7 of Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) , the BJP with 240 seats will not be in a position to run the government.
Sources said that the TDP has demanded three ministerial positions apart from the post of Speaker of Lok Sabha from the BJP. Similarly, the JDU, source said, has demanded atleast 2 ministerial posts and also the speaker post for its members.
Once it became clear on Tuesday night that Modi was coming back, which dispelled the uncertainty over who will lead the nation for the next five years, the stock market that had bled on Tuesday, climbed swiftly on Wednesday. The Sensex rose by 2,303.19 points or 3.20 percent while settling at 74,382.24 while the Nifty too gained 735.80 points or 3.36 percent as it closed at 22,620.30 points. All the stocks of Adani and Ambani group, which too had witnessed sharp decline on Tuesday, rose by an average 5-10 percent.
Modi will have to walk a tightrope in his third tenure as he will be dependent on the support of allies , some of those who have not even won on double digit seats except the TDP and JDU.
The danger and concerns that the PM will have to deal with virtually every day as per the current scenario is either of the top two allies (TDP, JDU) or the smaller ones deciding to jump ship and extend their support to the Congress led INDIA bloc.
This decrease in working space will be a new challenge for the 73 years old Modi as during his two decades stint, first as the Chief Minister of Gujarat and then as that of the PM of India, he had the comfort of BJP having enough number on his own to run the government, without relying on the support of any allies.
Once the dust settles down and the new cabinet is formed party workers are expecting a major organizational surgery in the BJP in wake of the failure of the party leaders in the organization in gauging the mood of the voters while continuing to communicate to the leadership that the BJP was crossing 300 plus seats on its own.
Either these leaders gave incorrect information to the top leadership or were incompetent and could not genuinely realize the situation the BJP was in.
