President Droupadi Murmu hosted a dinner for the outgoing Union Council of Ministers of the 17th Lok Sabha led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Rashtrapati Bhavan today (June 5). The farewell dinner was also attended by Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
The dinner took place just hours after Prime Minister Modi tendered his resignation to the President, who accepted it and requested him to continue in his role until the new government assumes office.
"President Droupadi Murmu hosted a dinner for the outgoing Union Council of Ministers, led by Prime Minister @narendramodi, at Rashtrapati Bhavan," the Rashtrapati Bhavan said in an X post.
President Murmu dissolves 17th Lok Sabha
President Murmu dissolved the 17th Lok Sabha on the advice of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Cabinet, according to the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Cabinet, in its meeting held on Wednesday, advised the President to dissolve the current Lok Sabha with immediate effect, it said. The term of the current Lok Sabha was to end on June 16.
"The President has accepted the advice of the Cabinet on 05.06.2024 and signed the Order dissolving the 17th Lok Sabha in exercise of the powers conferred upon her by Sub-clause (b) of Clause (2) of Article 85 of the Constitution," a communique issued by the Rashtrapati Bhavan read.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Modi tendered his resignation to President Murmu, who accepted it and asked him to continue till the new government assumes office.
The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won a majority in the Lok Sabha election. While the NDA is comfortably above the majority mark of 272 in the 543-member Lok Sabha, the BJP, which won 240 seats, has fallen short of the magic number for the first time since 2014 and is critically dependent on its allies for government formation.
NDA leaders support BJP, approve PM Modi's name as alliance leader in key meet
All the members of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) have extended their support to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Modi as alliance leader. The development has come after a key NDA meeting which took place at the Prime Minister's residence at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, a day after Lok Sabha election results to discuss the next government formation.
The meeting of the NDA partners at Prime Minister's residence was attended by Bihar CM and JDU chief Nitish Kumar, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Chandrababu Naidu, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) Chirag Paswan, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) Jayant Chaudhary, HD Kumaraswamy, Jitan Ram Manjhi, Anupriya Patel, Eknath Shinde besides top BJP leadership incuding Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, JP Nadda and others.
