Delhi: Narendra Modi is likely to take oath as the 16th Prime Minister of India on June 9. Top leaders of several neighbouring countries, including Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, are expected to attend the grand ceremony.
Modi is all set to take charge as the prime minister for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) winning 293 seats in the Lok Sabha polls.

According to sources, leaders of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal and Mauritius are likely to be among the foreign leaders to be invited to Modi's oath-taking ceremony. The media division of Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe's office said Modi has invited him to the swearing-in ceremony.
It said Wickremesinghe congratulated Modi on the electoral victory in a phone call and accepted the invitation. "During the conversation, Prime Minister @narendramodi invited President Wickremesinghe to his swearing-in ceremony, which President @RW_UNP accepted," it said.

Modi also had a phone conversation with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. In the phone conversation, Modi invited Hasina to attend his swearing-in ceremony and she accepted it, diplomatic sources said.

The people cited above said Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda', Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay and Prime Minister of Mauritius Pravind Jugnauth are set to be invited to Modi's swearing-in ceremony. Modi had a separate phone conversation with Prachanda.
The formal invitations are set to be sent on Thursday, said one of the people cited above.

The leaders of regional grouping SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) countries attended Modi's first swearing-in ceremony when he took the reins as the prime minister after a massive electoral victory for the BJP.

Leaders of the BIMSTEC countries attended Modi's swearing-in ceremony in 2019 when he became prime minister for the second consecutive term.

Narendra Modi was unanimously elected as the leader of the NDA on Wednesday. NDA MPs will meet on June 7 to formally elect Modi as their leader and the alliance leaders will then go to the President to submit their letters of support, HAM (Secular) leader and former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi said after attending the meeting. TDP leader N Chandrababu Naidu, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, LJP(R) leader Chirag Paswan, JD(S) leader H D Kumarawamy, Jana Sena's Pawan Kalyan, AGP's Atul Bora and NCP's Praful Patel were among the 21 leaders from 16 parties who attended the meeting besides Modi and BJP's Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and J P Nadda.

Though the BJP could not get a majority on its own in the polls, the party-led alliance secured 293 seats out of 543. The majority mark in the Lower House is 272.
(With PTI inputs)

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