Swearing-in ceremony of Narendra Modi election results on 16 May 2014, Modi met the President of India Pranab Mukherjee on 20 May where Mukherjee invited Modi to form the next government. The BJP had won 282 seats and their alliance National Democratic Alliance won a total of 336 seats in the 543-seat Lok Sabha, the strongest mandate since the 1984 elections where Indian National Congress had won. The BJP then announced that Modi will be sworn in on 26 May 2014 at 6 p.m. IST. The swearing-in ceremony was held at the forecourts of the Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi which has been used as the
Narendra Modi favour of reservation based on income, a move supported by the RSS, but which was criticised as being discriminatory on the basis of caste. Foreign policy played a relatively small role in Modi's election campaign, and did not feature prominently in the BJP's election manifesto. Modi invited all the other leaders of SAARC countries to his swearing in ceremony as prime minister. He was the first Indian prime minister to do so. Modi's foreign policy, similarly to that of the preceding INC government, focused on improving economic ties, security, and regional relations. Modi continued Manmohan Singh's policy of "multi-alignment." The