The historic Durbar Hall or the open, red sand covered forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan — speculation over the venue of the oath-taking ceremony of India’s next Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is generating as much curiosity as the assumptions over who all will make it to the corridors of power.
The BJP will announce the date of the swearing-in ceremony next week, but Rashtrapati Bhavan has already begun preparations for the event. Officials involved in the preparations said they had the option of setting up the recently refurbished Durbar Hall, which is where India’s first Governor-General, C. Rajagopalachari, and first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, took oath. Alternatively, if the guest list is long and the Prime Minister-elect so wishes, the ceremony can be held in the forecourt where in the 1990s, Chandra Shekhar and Atal Bihari Vajpayee were administered the oath of secrecy.
If reports of the guest list being in four figures are anything to go by, then the Durbar Hall with a capacity of 500 will not be a suitable venue and the ceremony will have to be moved to the forecourt.
The exuberant party might be compelled to keep the list of invitees short as the expansive forecourt too has its limitations owing to security and logistical concerns.
This is the third time that a BJP-led NDA Prime Minister will be sworn in as Prime Minister. It is reported that Mr. Vajpayee had expressed the wish to take oath in the Central Hall of Parliament, but the request was shot down by the then President, K.R. Narayanan. Mr. Vajpayee’s swearing-in ceremony both in 1996 and 1998 were held in the forecourt. In 1990, Mr. Chandra Shekhar had sought special permission to take oath in the forecourt citing a long list of guests.
