Karnal Member of Parliament (MP) Manohar Lal Khattar is likely to be inducted into the Union cabinet that will be sworn in on Sunday evening along with Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi. Khattar, the former chief minister of Haryana, won the Lok Sabha election from Karnal seat by over 2.3 lakh votes, defeating Congress candidate Divyanshu Budhiraja.
Earlier in the day, Narendra Modi hosted a tea meeting for the newly elected MPs who are likely to be included in the new cabinet and council of ministers. Manohar Lal Khattar was among those who attended the meeting.
“There is a ritual of Narendra Modi that he calls people to his residence for a tea meeting. He only calls those who he wants to induct in his cabinet,” said Khattar after attending the tea meeting at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg.
Khattar added that some formalities were to be done, which he has completed. “He (Modi) has asked me to stay in Delhi for the next 24 hours,” the former CM added.
Other than Khattar, Rao Inderjit Singh and Krishan Pal Gurjar were also present in the meeting, he said.
BJP leaders — Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, S Jaishankar, Sarbananda Sonowal, Dharmendra Pradhan, and Jyotiraditya Scindia were among those who attended the tea meeting.
Allies like TDP’s Ram Mohan Naidu and Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani, JD(U)’s Lalan Singh and Ram Nath Thakur, besides Chirag Paswan, Jitan Ram Manjhi, Janata Dal (S) leader H D Kumaraswamy, and RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary are being considered as ministers, reported PTI.
PM Modi will take the oath of office at 7:15 pm today along with his council of ministers in a ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had unanimously passed a resolution to elect Narendra Modi as their leader during a meeting on June 5.
