Bharatiya Janata Party's National Democratic Alliance partners have got five cabinet ministerial berths in the third term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as against none in the outgoing government, given the party's dependence on allies for a majority in the Lok Sabha.
Nadda replaces Union minister Piyush Goyal, who recently won the Lok Sabha election and took oath on Monday as a member of the Lower House of Parliament.
Seven women, including two in the Cabinet role, have been inducted into the new council of ministers in the 18th Lok Sabha.
President Droupadi Murmu hosted a dinner for the outgoing Union council of ministers at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Murmu's address to the joint sitting of Parliament will also be the first after the constitution of the 18th Lok Sabha.
There is a view that heavyweight portfolios like home, finance, defence and external affairs besides education and culture, two ministries with strong ideological hues, will be kept by the BJP, while its allies can get anywhere between five to eight cabinet berths.
Interestingly, Soundararajan's resignation comes on a day Prime Minister Narendra Modi held an election rally in Telangana's Jagtial and a roadshow in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore.
The new Parliament building, whose foundation was laid in December 2020 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is being constructed in its vicinity and the work is expected to be completed before the Winter Session.
Congress leaders and workers continued their protests in several states on Thursday against Rahul Gandhi's questioning by the Enforcement Directorate in the National Herald money-laundering case with many of them taken into preventive custody including former Union minister Renuka Chowdhury in Hyderabad after she allegedly grabbed the collar of a police official.
Opposition parties on Wednesday opposed the 'one nation, one election' proposal by calling it impractical and a 'cheap stunt' by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
Celebrations had already begun at BJP headquarters before the full announcement of results.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar's wife Sunetra Pawar on Thursday filed papers as an NCP candidate for Rajya Sabha elections.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said he will back any candidate announced by the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar as Maha Vikas Aghadi's chief ministerial face.
To keep their MLAs together, political parties are organising dinner meetings and arranging hotel stays for them ahead of the council elections, which are taking place just three months ahead of the assembly polls in the state.
Proving wrong his detractors' claim of being sidelined after denial of chief minister's post for fifth time last year, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan won Madhya Pradesh's Vidisha Lok Sabha seat for the sixth time by a record margin of 8.21 lakh votes.
The warming up of ties became apparent after the Centre announced the country's highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna to his grandfather and former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh.
Nadda enjoys warm relations with Modi, who was for a long time in charge of the party's affairs in Himachal Pradesh.
Transit accommodation in the Western Court Annexe or state bhavans will be provided to the newly-elected members who don't already have a government house in Delhi till they are provided regular accommodation by the Lok Sabha's House Committee, it said.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Friday said the decision to field his wife for Rajya Sabha bypoll was taken by his Nationalist Congress Party's apex body and denied reports that senior colleague Chhagan Bhujbal was upset over the move.
Hemant Soren staked claim to form the government and the swearing-in ceremony is likely to be held soon. If sworn in, Hemant Soren will be the 13th chief minister of Jharkhand, which was carved out of Bihar on November 15, 2000.
'As we enter 2025, it must be acknowledged that there is a convergence of capital, influential people (from business and politics) and technology deciding the destiny of others in the name of pride, patriotism, nationalism, nation building, all of it thinly veiled disguises for personal profit and glory,' asserts Shyam G Menon.
Gadkari is credited with the construction of more than 90,000 km of national highways and 30,000 km of new roads in the country in the last 10 years.
As many as six who hold law degrees include cabinet ministers Nitin Gadkari, J P Nadda, Piyush Goyal, Sarbananda Sonowal, Bhupender Yadav and Kiren Rijiju.
Five Parliamentarians from Karnataka including Janata Dal-Secular leader and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Nirmala Sitharaman and Pralhad Joshi, who were part of the previous Cabinet, on Sunday took oath in the new National Democratic Alliance Council of Ministers headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Asserting that her government has zero tolerance to incidents of rape, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said an amendment to existing laws will be passed in the state assembly next week to ensure capital punishment to convicted rapists.
What stood out in his 15-year journey as a member of the political executive at the Centre was his glowing record as India's most successful and effective finance minister. Both as prime minister and finance minister, he understood the importance of gradualism, except when the economy or the polity was in a crisis.
Jitin Prasada was once considered as among Rahul Gandhi's 'young Turks' and was a minister in successive Manmohan Singh governments but defected from the Congress to the BJP in 2021, where he has again established himself as a prominent Brahmin face of Uttar Pradesh.
The Congress, which has 37 MLAs, had fixed a quota of 30 first preference votes for its candidate Satav, and seven remaining votes were to go to its ally Sena (UBT)'s nominee Narvekar, party sources said. Eventually, Satav got 25 and Narvekar 22 first preference votes, which meant at least seven Congress MLAs cross-voted.
In addition to participating in the swearing-in ceremony, the leaders will attend a banquet hosted by President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan, it said.
He served as the Union health minister in Modi's first term from November 9, 2014 to May 30, 2019.
Nayab Singh Saini on Wednesday staked claim to form the next government in Haryana, hours after he was unanimously elected as the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party legislature party in the state.
The protesters were demanding inclusion of Meghalaya in the Inner Line Permit regime thereby exempting it from Citizenship Amendment Act.
The Modi government had touched the maximum strength of 78 in 2021 after expansion, but the outgoing council of ministers had 72 members, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Amid talks of cross-voting, three of the 37 Congress MLAs in Maharashtra skipped a meeting called by the party ahead of the legislative council polls on Friday.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday participated in a traditional 'halwa' ceremony, marking the final stage for preparation of Union Budget 2024-25 to be unveiled on July 23 in Lok Sabha. The ceremony is a ritual in which traditional dessert 'halwa' is prepared and served to officials and staff members of the finance ministry who are involved in the preparation of the Budget.
A high-level committee on Thursday recommended simultaneous elections for Lok Sabha and state assemblies as the first step followed by synchronised local body polls within 100 days.
Justice Sanjiv Khanna, who has been part of several landmark Supreme Court judgements such as scrapping the electoral bonds scheme and upholding abrogation of Article 370, will be sworn in as the 51st Chief Justice of India on Monday.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
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