Aspirants for Cabinet berths made a beeline for Narendra Modi’s temporary residence in Delhi but the Prime Minister-elect is likely to take oath with just a handful of key ministers by this weekend.
The BJP’s parliamentary party is expected to meet to elect its leader on Tuesday morning. Given the size of the parliamentary party, with 282 newly-elected Lok Sabha MPs and 46 members from the Rajya Sabha, the Central Hall of Parliament is considered the appropriate venue for the meeting.
After Modi is elected leader of the BJP’s parliamentary party, he will be invited to form the government by President Pranab Mukherjee, who has already received a list of the new Lok Sabha MPs from the Election Commission.
Mukherjee dissolved the 15th Lok Sabha on Sunday. “In exercise of the powers conferred upon me by sub-clause (b) of clause (2) of article 85 of the Constitution, I hereby dissolve the Lok Sabha,” read the order of the President.
Through the day, Modi was stationed at Gujarat Bhawan with his chief adviser Amit Shah.
Senior leader Arun Jaitley spent the morning at Gujarat Bhawan before he drove to party president Rajnath Singh’s residence at Ashoka Road in the afternoon. This is the core group — Shah, Jaitley and Singh — that Modi is consulting in the process of government formation.
Jaitley, despite his loss in Amritsar, is assumed to be poised for a senior ministry while Rajnath may continue as party president.
Berth for Swaraj Sushma Swaraj is not part of this close circle of advisers although she met Modi on Tuesday besides holding parleys with Rajnath and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leaders in the three days since the results came out.
Swaraj, in fact, waited for a while on Friday to meet the BJP president while he was talking to senior Uttar Pradesh leader Kalyan Singh.
There is very little room for dissenters in the party with the kind of electoral victory Modi has been able to secure for the BJP. Hence, the RSS’ advisory with regard to “generational change” is reportedly going to be implemented in letter and spirit by keeping veteran LK Advani out of the Cabinet. The future of another veteran, Murli Manohar Joshi, too is uncertain despite his victory from Kanpur.
Sources said the “generational change” ruling does not apply to Swaraj who, on account of her stature as outgoing Leader of Opposition, expects a senior position in the Cabinet. But the only reason for Swaraj, who has been fairly vocal in her criticism of Modi, to be accommodated in accordance with her seniority will be that the PM-elect will not want to begin his innings with a controversy.
An important visitor at Rajnath’s residence on Monday was former Rajya Sabha MP Arun Shourie. Various other leaders too took turns to meet Modi and Rajnath. During the day, Modi met Varun Gandhi, CP Thakur, Anurag Thakur, Gopinath Munde, Najma Heptullah and Vijay Goel.
Surprise visitor Another surprise visitor to Gujarat Bhawan was YSR Congress chief Jaganmohan Reddy. Although the BJP has aligned with the TDP in Seemandhra as well as Telangana, the meeting was said to have been sought by Jagan, who has already said that he is “open to cooperation” with any party in the Centre.
The BJP president too was busy meeting all the allies — Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal, LJP chief Ramvilas Paswan and his son Chirag, and MDMK chief Vaiko.