Modi meets party leaders

As preparations for government formation gained momentum, Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi today held talks with BJP leaders here.

Modi held a meeting with his close aide Amit Shah, party general secretary J P Nadda, former chief minister and Karnataka strongman BS Yedyurappa and Bihar incharge Dharmedra Pradhan.

Political developments in Bihar in the wake of resignation of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar are understood to have also come up for discussion, party sources said.

BJP is maintaining a wait-and-watch stand in the state, they said, in the backdrop of the JD(U) legislature party meeting today to elect a leader.

Meanwhile, Modi will be formally elected as the leader of the BJP Parliamentary Party at its meeting here on May 20 ahead of taking oath as Prime Minister.

BJP chief Rajnath Singh has said the NDA allies will also be invited for a meeting on the same day where the leader of the coalition will also be chosen.

Modi arrived in Delhi yesterday to a rousing welcome by the party and supporters and went to Varanasi where he took part in 'Ganga aarti' before returning to the national capital last evening. 

Meanwhile, Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, who won the lone Parliamentary seat in the state, also met Modi at Gujarat Bhavan.

Ruling Naga People's Front (NPF) nominee Rio, a pre-poll ally of BJP, had earlier spoken to Modi on May 16, when the results were out and was slated to him in the national capital.

"I will be going to Delhi for the bigger cause of the Naga people," he had said.