Narendra Damodardas Modi has been sworn in as the prime minister of the nation for the second consecutive term -- becoming only the first non-Congress PM to achieve the feat.
Along with PM Modi, his Council of Ministers -- including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Anurag Thakur, S Jaishankar, Babul Supriyo and Piyush Goyal among others -- also took the oath at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi.
The swearing-in ceremony was a grand affair with more than 6,000 guests, including leaders from the BIMSTEC countries, opposition leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, chief ministers, corporate honchos and film stars in attendance as President Ram Nath Kovind administered the oath of office and secrecy to 68-year-old Modi and his ministerial colleagues.
PM Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah held several rounds of discussions in the last two days ahead of government formation. Other senior party leaders such as Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Narendra Singh Tomar, Prakash Javadekar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Dharmendra Pradhan and Smriti Irani also joined the second Modi government after being its members in its first avatar.
Rajnath Singh was the first minister to take oath.
The loudest cheers followed when BJP Amit Shah took oath.
Shah was followed by Nitin Gadkari, Sadananda Gowda and Nirmala Sitharaman.
Ram Vilas Paswan, Narendra Singh Tomar and Ravi Shankar Prasad were also sworn in.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal also took the oath as a Cabinet minister, followed by Thaawar Chand Gehlot, S Jaishankar, Arjun Munda, Smriti Irani and Dr Harshvardhan.
PM Modi took to Twitter and posted a video with the live-streaming link of the ceremony. He captioned the video: "Honoured to serve India! Watch the oath taking ceremony."
Moments before the oath-taking formalities began, PM Modi changed his Twitter display picture to one in which he is clad in a black bandgala. The earlier picture had him wearing a saffron Nehru jacket.
PM Modi in his Twitter DP
Other ministers who were sworn in at the ceremony include Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Prahlad Joshi, Mahendranath Pandey, Arwind Sawant, Giriraj Singh and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat -- in order of them taking oath.
Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Rao Inderjit Singh, and Shripad Naik were also sworn in.
Jitendra Singh, Kiren Rijiju, Prahlad Patel, RK Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri and Mansukh Mandviya took oath as Ministers of State with Independent Charge.
Faggan Singh Kulastey, Ashwini Kumar Chaubey, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Gen VK Singh, Krishan Pal Gurjar, Rao Sahab Daanve, G Kishan Reddy, Parshottam Rupala, Ramdas Athawale, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Babul Supriyo, Sanjeev Balyan and Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre were sworn in as Ministers of State.
Suresh Angadi, Nityanand Rai, V Muraleedharan, Renuka Singh Surguja, Som Parkash, Rameswar Teli, Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Kailash Choudhary and Debashree Choudhary also took oath as Ministers of State.
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