President dissolves 14th Lok Sabha

NI Wire

New Delhi

Mon, 18 May 2009: 

President Pratibha Patil on Monday dissolved the 14th Lok Sabha with immediate effect and asked the Prime Minister and his Council of Ministers to continue in office till the new government is formed.

The President is likely to invite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the unanimously accepted leader of the ngress-led UPA which has voted as the largest party for the 15th Lok Sabha, to form the new government on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, the Union Cabinet met at the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s 7 Racecourse residence and passed the resolution for the dissolution of the 14th Lok Sabha.Dr. Singh met the President later and tendered his and his council of ministers’ resignation to her and recommended to dissolve the Lok Sabha.

The President accepted the recommendation and signed an Order dissolving the 14th Lok Sabha in exercise of the powers conferred upon her by sub-clause (b) of clause (2) Article 85 of the Constitution.

The President also asked Dr. Singh to continue as interim PM till a new government is formed.

The newly constituted Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) is most likely to meet tomorrow and will elect the Dr. Singh as leader of the Parliamentary Party.

Congress-led UPA which has won 261 seats needs just 11 more to get the magic figure of 272 in the 545-member Lok Sabha. Meanwhile, Congress is having consultations with its pre-poll alliance partners of the UPA those are NCP, TMC, DMK and NC about the support taking from the Fourth Front parties.

In view of the unprecedented success of the Congress in the parliamentary elections, The Forth Front—Samajwadi Party and RJD — has already offered unconditional support to the government.

Simultaneously with the development of formation of new government, some other developments occurred today.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI-M declared in the meeting of its politburo members that there will be no change in its leadership and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will continue as the chief minister of West Bengal. In a related development, top leadership in the party decided that L K Advani will continue as the Leader of Opposition.