Narendra Modi, parliamentary leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, started the first tenure as the prime ministers of the country on May 26 in 2014, after his swearing-in as the 14th PM of India. Along with PM Modi, 45 other ministers were also sworn in on the historic day.
Interestingly, the ceremony happened to be the first ever swearing-in of an Indian Prime Minister to have been attended by the heads of all SAARC countries.
Election results that announced Modi's PM-ship
Post the declaration of election results on 16 May 2014, PM Modi met the President of India Pranab Mukherjee on 20 May where Mukherjee invited Modi to form the next government.
The BJP had won 282 seats and their alliance National Democratic Alliance won a total of 336 seats in the 543-seat Lok Sabha, the strongest mandate since the 1984 elections where Indian National Congress had won. The BJP then announced that Modi would be sworn in on 26 May 2014 at 6 p.m. Modi's actual oath was made at 6:13 p.m. IST.
Details into the swearing-in ceremony of PM Modi
The swearing-in ceremony was held at the forecourts of the Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi which has been used as the venue of swearing-in by only two previous Prime Ministers, Chandra Shekhar (1990, Samajwadi Janata Party) and Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1996 and 1998, BJP).
Before, Modi has taken his oath as Chief Minister of Gujarat in open stadiums. Extra trains were scheduled from Varanasi and Gujarat on the previous day for viewers to reach Delhi. The special “K9” squad of trained dogs belonging to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police was employed to secure the areas of the venue.
List of ministers who attended the swearing-in ceremony
The then outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former Presidents A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Congress president Sonia Gandhi were among those who participated. Chief Ministers of all states in India were invited to attend the event. Among them, the Chief Minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah (INC) and Chief Minister of Kerala, Oommen Chandy (INC) could not attend the ceremony due to their prior engagements though they gave their best wishes.
The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, J. Jayalalithaa (AIADMK), whose party had won the third highest number of seats in the election also declined to attend the event, while the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Bannerjee (AITC), decided to send Mukul Roy and Amit Mitra to attend.[33] Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan of the BJP and his entire cabinet had hired an aircraft to attend the swearing in.
Celebrities who witnessed the political event
Celebrities who were invited to the event included Salman Khan, Dharmendra, Anupam Kher, Madhur Bhandarkar, Suresh Gopi, Vivek Oberoi, Lata Mangeshkar, Rajnikanth and Amitabh Bachchan.
Celebration across the globe
Celebrations were also carried out in the Times Square of New York City and other cities of United States of America by organizing "election watch parties". An Indian restaurant in New Jersey also promised free methi pakodas if Modi won the elections. Similar festivities were also seen amongst the Indians settled in Australia and Canada
