Union Cabinet meet today; Both NDA, INDIA bloc to huddle in Delhi

INDIA bloc leaders will meet at Kharge's house to decide on further strategy

Untitled design - 1 Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (Right) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi | PTI

A day after the mandate became clear, the Union Cabinet will meet on Wednesday morning to assess the results of the Lok Sabha elections under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He is expected to dissolve the government on Wednesday as he prepares for the next swearing-in.

The Prime Minister said on Tuesday evening, after the election results came out, that the NDA would form the next government. 

After 10 years of the BJP rule where it had a brute majority, the third round of counting saw the party falling short of securing a majority of its own by nearly 32 seats. The BJP numbers hovered around 240, which means that BJP secured 63 seats less than the 2019 verdict of 303 seats.  However, with NDA allies like Chandra Babu Naidu’s TDP, Nitish Kumar’s JDU, and Chirag Paswan’s LJP (RV) among others, the alliance numbers were over 290, including the seats where they were leading.  his mandate would mean that the BJP would now have to lean in on the allies which it could earlier afford to ignore.

The NDA is also likely to meet today to discuss the future.  The Prime Minister is said to have rang up Naidu and Nitish Kumar,  and invited both for the meeting.

Meanwhile, the INDIA bloc leaders will meet at Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge's residence to decide on their further strategy. Though Congress leaders have already contacted both Nitish and Naidu, speculations are rife about whether the bloc will reach out to them for government formation.

The meeting will be held at 6 pm at the 10, Rajaji Marg residence of Kharge, where deliberations will be held on Lok Sabha poll results and on whether to bring on board the JDU and TDP in moving towards government formation.

Opposition leaders including Sharad Pawar, Mamata Banerjee, M K Stalin, Champai Soren, Uddhav Thackeray, Akhilesh Yadav, Sitaram Yechury, D Raja and others are likely to attend the meeting, along with top Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

However, both Naidu and Nitish, who have already arrived in Delhi for talks with BJP leaders, have dismissed suggestions about defecting to the opposition alliance. However, the INDIA bloc wants to explore the possibility of government formation.

The Congress and other leaders are reportedly in touch with them and are trying their best to win them over. However, Rahul Gandhi, after the press conference, remained mum on whether he would invite them to form a government.

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