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Prem Singh Tamang, popular as P S Golay, became the sixth chief minister of Sikkim when he was sworn in by governor Ganga Prasad at Gangtok’s Paljore stadium on Monday. © Provided by Hindustan Times It marked the end of the 25-year rule of the Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) and its leader Pawan Chamling, who holds the record of the longest serving chief minister in any Indian state by administering Sikkim for 8,932 days. Immediately after being sworn in, the new chief minister declared a five-day week for the state government employees. Earlier, only the second Saturday of each month was a government holiday. “The government would launch an austerity programme. No minister, including me, would travel in luxurious vehicles. We would also not use beacons,” Golay (51) told the media after he was sworn in. After the oath-taking ceremony, he held a meeting of the 11-member cabinet (excluding him). Among his government’s priority areas were employment generation, health sector, educ...

These resignations take to six the number of party unit chiefs who have resigned after the its poor show in the Lok Sabah elections -- the others being UP party chief Raj Babbar, Odisha’s Niranjan Patnaik and Ashok Chavan of Maharashtra. Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jhakar emailed his resignation to Rahul Gandhi taking moral responsibility for losing to actor Sunny Deol from Gurdaspur though the party did reasonably well winning 8 of the states 13 seats as compared to 3 seats in 2014. The BJP and its ally SAD won two each. Congress chief in Jharkhand, Ajoy Roy, sent in his resignation taking moral responsibility for the party’s poor show in the state where they won just one of the state’s 14 seats. “PCC chief has taken moral responsibility of the party’s performance and sent his resignation on May 24. However, party’s performance was not that bad as we won Singhbhum comfortably and lost Khunti and Lohardaga by a wafer thin margin,” said Jharkhand Congress spokesperson Al...

© Reuters Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swearing-in ceremony on Thursday will be attended by leaders from the BIMSTEC member states. The BIMSTEC member states are: Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan and India. Full coverage: Elections 2019 “Government of India has invited the leaders of the BIMSTEC Member States for the swearing-in ceremony. This is in line with Government’s focus on its ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy. The President of the Kyrgyz Republic, who is the current Chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Prime Minister of Mauritius, who was the Chief Guest at this year’s Pravasi Bhartiya Divas, have also been invited,” confirmed official spokesperson. In 2014, PM Modi had invited all SAARC leaders for his swearing-in ceremony. “The President will administer the oath of office and secrecy to the Prime Minister and other members of the Union council of ministers at 7pm on May 30, 2019, at Rashtrapati Bhavan,” read the st...

© Provided by IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd BJP supporters during a bike rally campaign in East Delhi. (Express photo by Abhinav Saha) The BJP has won 41 out of 79 Lok Sabha constituencies across 90 districts that the UPA-I government had identified as having a minority population of over 25 per cent and poor socio-economic indicators. The BJP wrested 15 of these seats from Opposition parties this time, most of them coming from West Bengal. The Congress s share of these seats was halved, from 12 in 2014 to six in 2019. Out of these, they lost three seats to the BJP in the Northeast, one in Karnataka and one in West Bengal. The BJP had won 34 such seats in 2014. The first UPA government in 2008 had identified 90 Minority Concentration Districts as part of a development programme aimed at focusing on education, health and skill development in these districts. As per the 2001 Census, minorities are defined as Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians (Parsis...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting in the Japanese city of Osaka next month, a statement from the government said on Friday. “They also agreed to work together for further enhancing the close and strategic partnership between the two countries,” the statement said referring to a telephonic conversation between Trump and Modi on Friday. This came after Trump put out a Twitter message congratulating the Indian prime minister on Thursday on his election win. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party won 303 seats in the 545 member Parliament, with the opposition Congress party left far behind with a tally of just over 50 seats. The meeting between Trump and Modi comes as the US is set to withdraw some preferential trade measures for India under the Generalised System of Preferences, in a bid to ensure fair trade between the two countries. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of t...

Three senior Congress leaders from Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Karnataka have sent in their resignation to party boss Rahul Gandhi owning responsibility for the party’s poor show in the national elections. Uttar Pradesh chief Raj Babbar was the latest resignation to be sent on Friday after the Congress won only the Rae Bareli constituency of Sonia Gandhi in the state that sends 80 lawmakers to parliament. Babbar, who contested from Fatehpur Sikri, also lost by a margin of nearly 5 lakh votes to the BJP candidate. Complete coverage: Elections 2019 HK Patil, who was tasked to oversee the Karnataka Congress campaign in December, has also quit, according to news agency ANI. Odisha Congress chief Niranjan Patnaik had earlier resigned from his post after the Congress won just 9 assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat. Patnaik had lost the 2 assembly seats he contested; his son also lost a Lok Sabha seat. Some more offers to quit are expected to follow as well but a Congress leader ...

In a tragic incident, the Congress chief of Sehore district in Madhya Pradesh died of a heart attack at a vote counting centre set up for the Lok Sabha elections. Ratan Singh Thakur Ratan Singh Thakur, chief of Congress in Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh, was reportedly collecting information on the latest trends when he complained of chest pain and collapsed. Ratan Singh was rushed to the district hospital but he died at the hospital. Congress is heading towards another defeat in Lok Sabha elections in Bhopal. Controversial Bharatiya Janata Party's Sadhvi Pragya has established a lead of over one lakh votes over her Congress rival Digvijay Singh in Bhopal Lok Sabha seat, with the saffron party is leading in 28 of the 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh. MSN News

Congratulatory messages from Bangladesh, Russian, Chinese and French leaders among others poured in for Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he led BJP to a resounding win in the Lok Sabha elections, becoming the first non-Congress PM to return to power after a full five-year term. Live: Lok Sabha results 2019 Complete coverage: Elections 2019 Expressing his gratitude for their compliments and good wishes, PM Modi said the general elections embodied the strength of Indian democracy, which is the world s largest. He thanked the global leaders for their cooperation in developing mutually beneficial bilateral relations and multilateral cooperation and expressed his desire to continue to work further with them in fostering even stronger ties. Here is how the world leaders reacted to PM Modi’s win: Russian President Vladimir Putin: "I am convinced that, as the Prime Minister of India, you will further strengthen the centuries-old friendship between our peoples and the all-rou...

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has firmly established itself as the dominant pole of Indian politics in the 2019 general elections. If the current trends hold , the 2019 verdict will have a close resemblance to the results of the 1977 and 1980 elections in terms of the dominance of one political party in India. Data scarped from the Election Commission of India (ECI) website shows that at 11:03 am, around 19% of the total votes had been counted in the country. The BJP is leading in 288 parliamentary constituencies (PCs) with a vote share of around 40%, nine percentage points more than what it had in 2014. Live: Lok Sabha results 2019 No political party in India has had such a high level of vote share after the 1984 elections, which were held in an extremely polarised environment months after the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. The Congress had a vote share of 48.1% and it won 415 PCs in the 1984 elections. Complete coverage: ...

As the trends became clear in the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA is headed for a second term with a number of leads indicating a clear edge for the BJP-led ruling coalition. The latest trends show that the NDA is leading in more than 320 seats with the BJP leading in 275 seats, close to the halfway mark. Live: Lok Sabha results 2019 The trends suggest a wave in favour of Narendra Modi which took the BJP beyond 200 just an hour after the counting began at 8 am. The BJP is doing extremely well in the Hindi heartland, its strong bastions, as well as in the east and in the west. Both in Odisha and West Bengal, the two states where the BJP and its president Amit Shah have focussed to expand the party’s base, it is doing well. The Rahul Gandhi-led Congress’ performance appears to be dismal, with the party struggling in both Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, where the party has won assembly elections just four months ago. Complete coverage: Elec...