Indian president names Modi prime minister for second term

NEW DELHI – The Indian president on Saturday appointed Narendra Modi as prime minister shortly after the newly elected deputies, led by Modi's Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata, chose him as leader after a landslide victory in the elections. national.

President Ram Nath Kovind said in a tweet that he had also asked Modi to provide him with the names of people to appoint ministers of his government, as well as the date of his swearing in for his second five-year term as as Prime Minister. Modi and some leaders of his alliance met with the president earlier Saturday.

The media announced that Modi would be sworn in by Kovind on Thursday.

Critics say that Modi and his party applied divisive policies and used a Hindu strategy. But Modi said after Saturday's vote that "this election has become a movement of social unity".

"It is generally said that the election divides, creates distances, creates walls. But the 2019 elections worked to break the walls, "he said in his speech.

BJP President Amit Shah announced Modi's name as head of the National Democratic Alliance at a legislators' meeting in the central lobby of Parliament in New Delhi.

The Electoral Commission announced that the BJP had won 303 of the 542 seats at the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, after the official counting of the 6 weeks of the election on Friday. It's way beyond the simple majority that an Indian party has to form a government.

The main rival of the BJP, the Indian National Congress led by Rahul Gandhi, won 52 seats and the All India Trinamool Congress led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee won 22.

Gandhi, whose great-grandfather, grandmother and father were all prime ministers, personally surrendered his seat, long a bastion of the Congress party, to his rival BJP, the Indian Minister of Textiles, marking the end of an era for the most powerful political dynasty of modern India.

The BJP's victory was widely seen as a referendum on Modi's Hindu nationalist policy which, according to some observers, would have generated intolerance against Muslims and other religious minorities. Modi also took a tough stance vis-à-vis neighboring Pakistan, with which India almost waged war earlier this year after a suicide bombing killed more than 40 Indian soldiers in Kashmir under Indian control.

Modi effectively used this incident as a major campaign tool after reacting to the attack with a Pakistani air strike that sparked nationalistic sentiments. The BJP said that Modi was the ideal person to ensure the national security of India.

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