More than 20 leaders are likely to take part in oath taking ceremony of Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi. Nepali prime minister KP Sharma Oli will attend the ceremony.
A galaxy of leaders from BIMSTEC nations, Congress President Rahul Gandhi and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, former prime minister Manmohan Singh, other opposition leaders, corporate honchos, film stars and other dignitaries are expected to attend the ceremony.
According to Indian media, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take oath along with a new council of ministers on Thursday for a second term at a function at Rashtrapati Bhavan, amid suspense on who will get the Big Four - Home, Finance, Defence and External Affairs - Cabinet berths. President Ram Nath Kovind will administer the oath of office and secrecy to 68-year-old Modi and his ministerial colleagues.
Modi paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat early morning today and will also pay tribute to Atal Bihari Vajpayee at his memorial Sadaiv Atal Samadhi in New Delhi ahead of his oath taking ceremony.
Ahead of PM Modi's swearing-in, senior BJP leaders, who are likely to be re-inducted in the Narendra Modi government, met BJP chief Amit Shah at his residence. These included Smriti Irani, Rajnath Singh, Piyush Goyal, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Prakash Javadekar, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore.
Prior to that, Narendra Modi met Arun Jaitley at the latter’s residence on, hours after the outgoing finance minister requested that he should not be given any responsibility for now and be allowed time off due to his ill health.
Over 10,000 security personnel from Delhi Police and paramilitary forces have been deployed on account of Modi's swearing-in ceremony.
A multi-layered security arrangement will be in place in the city on Thursday, with deployment of around 10,000 security personnel from Delhi Police and paramilitary forces.