Indian PM Narendra Modi is set to take the oath for his third term on Saturday, becoming the first leader since Congress’s Jawaharlal Nehru to achieve this milestone. After meeting with President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi, Modi and his cabinet submitted their resignations, but the President asked them to continue until the swearing-in ceremony.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which secured 282 seats in 2014 and 303 seats in 2019, won 240 seats in the recent election, falling 32 seats short of the 272-majority mark. To secure a third term, the BJP will depend on the 53 seats won by its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners.
Varanasi
In Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi, PM Modi retained his Lok Sabha seat by defeating Congress’s Ajay Rai with a margin of less than 1.5 lakh votes, marking his third term as an MP from this constituency.
Earlier today, Modi confirmed that the NDA would form the government for a third time, describing the election results as a “victory of the world’s largest democracy.” He also chaired the final meeting of the Union Cabinet in the current government.
The BJP had aimed for 370 seats (over 400 including NDA partners), but faced significant challenges from the Congress-led INDIA bloc, which secured 232 seats. Despite the opposition’s strong performance, the BJP remained the single-largest party, thanks to strong showings in Odisha (20 of 21 seats), Andhra Pradesh (21 of 25), Madhya Pradesh (29 of 29), and Bihar (30 of 40).
Notably, the BJP won its first-ever Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, indicating a shift in the party’s performance in the southern states. The BJP also doubled its tally in Telangana to eight seats. However, it did not win any seats in Tamil Nadu for the second consecutive election, with the ruling DMK and its INDIA bloc allies sweeping all 39 seats.
