Narendra Modi was on Sunday sworn in as India’s prime minister for the third consecutive term within a 71-member council of ministers.

The oath of office and secrecy was administered by President Droupadi Murmu at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.

Several MPs, including those from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s National Democratic Alliance partners, also took oath as Union ministers.

The council has 30 cabinet-rank ministers, 33 ministers of state and five ministers of state with independent charge.

The oath-taking ceremony was attended by foreign leaders including Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Nepal’s Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, Mauritius’ Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Maldives’ Mohamed Muizzu and Ahmed Afif, the vice president of Seychelles.

Others who were invited to the ceremony were Padma awardees, prominent personalities from several fields, individuals mentioned in Modi’s monthly radio show Mann Ki Baat, the 12 rat-hole miners who played a crucial role in rescuing 41 workers trapped inside an Uttarakhand tunnel in November, labourers who helped construct the new Parliament building and the workers who built the Vande Bharat trains.

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On Friday, Murmu invited Prime Minister-elect Modi to form the government for the third time, hours after he was elected by the National Democratic Alliance MPs as the Leader of the Lower House of Parliament.

The BJP won 240 Lok Sabha seats in the general election, a significant dip from its tally of 303 seats in 2019. A party or alliance requires 272 seats in the 543-member Lower House of Parliament to form a government at the Centre.

With the BJP falling 32 seats short of the majority, it formed the Union government with the support of its partners in the National Democratic Alliance. The final tally of the National Democratic Alliance parties is 292 seats.

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