Modi, Shah hold parleys on cabinet, Oppn CMs to stay away from swearing-in

In a quick turn of events, the maverick West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee reversed her earlier announcement and said she will not be attending the swearing-in ceremony to protest the political violence in her state.

Banerjee, who was locked into a bitter one-on-one confrontation with Modi during elections, congratulated the Prime Minister.

However, in a tweet, she wrote: "It was my plan to accept the ‘Constitutional invitation’ and attend the oath-taking ceremony. However, in the last one hour, I am seeing media reports that the BJP are claiming 54 people have been murdered in political violence in Bengal. This is completely untrue. There have been no political murders in Bengal."

Reports said Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of CPI-M and Congress-ruled states may also give it a miss.

In 2014 too, Banerjee and chief ministers of Opposition-ruled states had skipped the customary oath-taking ceremony held on May 26.

The Congress veteran from Mizoram and the then Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla had attended Modi’s crowning session and also had said, “AICC had asked me not to attend. All the state Chief Ministers being invited to the swearing-in of Prime Minister was unprecedented. And I am happy a former CM is now a PM (about Modi)."

Ironically, not only Lal Thanhawla - Congress has no chief minister in the North-east region now.

A galaxy of international leaders and nation heads of BIMSTEC nations and who's who including film stars like Rajnikanth are expected to attend the function while regional satraps K Chandrasekhar Rao and Jaganmohan Reddy are likely to attend the ceremony.

President of Bangladesh Md Abdul Hamid, his Sri Lankan counterpart Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Ministers of Mauritius and Nepal Pravind Kumar Jugnauth and KP Sharma Oli respectively will grace the function.

According to an MEA spokesman, Sooronbay Jeenbekov, President of the Kyrgyz Republic, U Win Myint, President of Myanmar, Dr Lotay Tshering, Prime Minister of Bhutan; and Grisada Boonrach, Special Envoy of Thailand have also confirmed their participation during the special occasion.

The Prime Minister held a series of meetings in past two days with party president Amit Shah while senior leader Arun Jaitley opted out of the new government citing health reasons.

JD-U president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar held a closed-door meeting with the BJP president at Shah's residence where discussions on ministry allocations figured.

Allies like Shiv Sena and LJP are eyeing greater role in the NDA regime and may get important portfolios.

In 2014, the then Pakistan Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif was one of the major invitees to have graced the occasion.

In fact, Sharif was the first Pakistani Head of the government to witness the formal takeover of his Indian counterpart.