BJP formally chooses Narendra Modi be next Prime Minister of India

Narendra Modi [File Photo]

New Delhi, India (May 20, 2014): India’s opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has started putting together a new government by formally choosing Narendra Modi as the leader of the parliamentary party following a resounding victory in national elections.

Narendra Modi is scheduled to meet India’s President Pranab Mukherjee today to stake his claim to form the new government. The BJP will then announce the date he will be sworn in as prime minister.

Earlier today, the BJP President Rajnath Singh described the party’s landslide win as ‘historic’. The Hindu supremacist party won majority on its own for the first time in India’s 543-seat Lok Sabha, the more powerful lower house of parliament.

The alliance led by the BJP won 336 seats, far more than most analysts predicted, and the outgoing Congress party managed just 44 seats.