Narendra Modi met President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Wednesday and staked his claim to form the government for a third consecutive time. Modi is expected to be sworn in as Prime Minister on Sunday at 6 p.m.
Addressing the media, Modi said, "The President called me just now and asked me to work as the PM designate and she has informed me about the oath ceremony. I have told the President that we will be comfortable on the evening of the 9th of June. Now the Rashtrapati Bhavan will work out the rest of the details and by then we will hand over the list of the Council of Ministers to the President. After that, the oath ceremony will take place."
He added, “NDA got the opportunity to serve the people for the third time. I thank the people for giving us the opportunity. I want to assure countrymen that development work will continue as before. 25 crore people have been taken out of poverty. It is a matter of pride for every Indian."
Before visiting Rashtrapati Bhavan, Modi visited party stalwarts L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi at their residences.
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Earlier in the day, Modi addressed the NDA parliamentary meeting that elected him as the leader of the alliance. Senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh proposed Modi’s name as the leader of the BJP and NDA in the Lok Sabha. The decision was backed by BJP leader Amit Shah. The NDA, consisting of the BJP, Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United, and Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena among others, has 293 MPs, comfortably above the majority mark of 272 in the 543-member Lok Sabha. The alliance submitted its list of MPs to the President on Friday.