There are a good number of Muslims in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s massively populous country of India, but none of them took an oath at the magnificent ceremony conducted in New Delhi on Sunday, indicating that the group has no place in the newly elected government.
Modi took the oath of office as prime minister of India for the third time at the event. His government does not have a single Muslim czar, however it is said to consist of 30 federal and 41 state ministers.
The fact that no Muslims were elected from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in the most recent general elections may be the cause of this.
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There has always been at least one Muslim member of the freshly elected council of ministers in India since the country’s independence. Still, this is the first election in which there has been no elected Muslim MP.
Just 24 Muslims have been elected out of the 543 members of the 18th Lok Sabha, often known as the lower parliament, marking a sharp decline in Muslim representation.
21 of them are from the INDIA bloc, while three are from Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen in India.
This evening marks the first meeting of the new Indian central government’s cabinet, which will ask Indian President Droupadi Murmu to call a special session of parliament shortly.
Surprisingly, Modi could not get a clear majority as he had done the previous two times, and in order to stay in office, the premier had to enlist the help of partners under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) banner.
The result is viewed as a major blow to the favored leader because surveys and exit polls had indicated that the BJP would win even more seats than it did in 2019.
A day prior, thousands of guests, including the heads of seven regional nations, Bollywood celebrities, and business magnates, gathered at Rashtrapati Bhavan, the president’s residence in New Delhi, to witness President Murmu give Modi the oath of office.
After independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru, Modi is the only other person to have served as prime minister for three consecutive terms. Modi began his career as a publicist for the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological father of his BJP.
Following the unexpected outcome, Modi has embraced a more liberal stance. His election campaign was characterized by religious rhetoric and accusations that the opposition was favoring India’s 200 million minority Muslims.
