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ters from the outgoing government ter, Dr. Manmohan Singh, UPA Chair- Singh. BJP leader Uma Bharti could
were Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj. person, Sonia Gandhi, Congress Pres- be seen briefly chatting with a smil-
While the former opted out, Swaraj did ident, Rahul Gandhi, Uttar Pradesh ing Sonia Gandhi. But the journey of
not contest the polls, both citing health chief minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP the new government of India, riding
concerns. Similarly, missing from the veterans LK Advani and Murli Mano- high on the expectations of the peo-
MoS (Independent Charge) list were Dr har Joshi, former president Pratibha ple in a difficult time, has just started.
Mahesh Sharma, Rajyavardhan Singh Patil, speaker of the outgoing Lok
Ratho-re and K Alphons, while Manoj Sabha Sumitra Mahajan, vice presi- Rumblings
Sinha failed to make the cut as he lost dent M. Venkaiah Naidu, leaders
the election. The new Ministers of State of the BJP allies including the Shiv Already, there are rumblings in
include Nityanand Rai, Suresh Angadi Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray, the Akali the alliance partners though BJP
and first-time MPs G Kishan Reddy Dal’s Prakash Singh Badal and Sukh- has a brute majority of its own. The
(Telangana), Debosree Chowdhury bir Badal, and the Janata Da (United)’s swearing in ceremony was marred
(West Bengal) and Pratap Chandra Sa- Nitish Kumar were also present. by ally Janata Dal (United) deciding
rangi (Odisha). Although not too many opposition not to take oath even as party chief
The historic forecourt of Rashtrapati leaders were present at the event, Nitish Kumar marked his presence
Bhavan, hosted an audience of around United Progressive Alliance chair- by attending the ceremony. In a first
6,000-7000 people including politi- person Sonia Gandhi and Congress sign of rumblings within the National
cians, businessmen and movie person- president Rahul Gandhi came to- Democratic Alliance (NDA), the Jana-
alities for the swearing-in ceremony of gether and sat in the first row. As did ta Dal (United) announced on Thurs-
Narendra Modi’s second government. former Prime Minister Manmohan day that it would not be a part of the
In all, 58 ministers were administered
their oaths of office by President Ram
Nath Kovind, who gently ticked off
one or two for skipping keywords and
helpfully prompted a few others. The
around 110-minute-long programme
was gustily cheered on by Modi and
Bharatiya Janata Party supporters with
chants of “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”.
Among the business leaders who
attended the event were Mukesh
Ambani of Reliance Industries, Ratan
Tata and N Chandrasekaran of the
Tata group, Kumar Mangalam Birla of
the Aditya Birla Group, Gautan Adani,
Ajay Piramal, Uday Kotak, Bharti En-
terprises’ Rajan Mittal, Arcelor Mir-
ral’s LN Mittal, PayTM’s Vijay Shekhar
Sharma, Infosys’s NR Naraya Murthy.
Among the film stars were Anupam
Kher (although he was also the plus-
one of his wife, Chandigarh MP Kirron
Kher), Kangana Ranaut, Sushant Singh
Rajput, and Rajnikanth. Director Karan
Johar and producer Boney Kapoor
were also present.
Among others, former Prime Minis- Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Council of Ministers, after the Swearing-in Ceremony

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