Daily Bulletin: NDA Parliamentary Party meeting today; Congress working panel to take call on party's future; day's top stories

NDA Parliamentary meeting today After securing a  historic mandate of 353 seats in the Lok Sabha election , the National Democratic Alliance will hold its Parliamentary Party meet at the Central Hall of the Parliament in New Delhi today (Saturday, 25 May) at 5 pm. The primary purpose of the meet, it may be gauged, will be to formally elect Narendra Modi as the leader. President Ram Nath Kovind has, meanwhile, accepted Modi’s resignation and requested him and the Union Council of Ministers to continue in office till the new government is formed. [caption id=“attachment_6698221” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Prime Minister Narendra Modi with President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday. ANI[/caption] The Union Cabinet met on Friday evening to ask the President to dissolve the 16th Lok Sabha, the first step to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA starting its second innings next week. Congress to hold working committee meeting The question of the hour is whether Congress chief Rahul Gandhi will offer to resign , following a humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha election, where his party secured only 52 seats. This and the future direction of the party will be up for discussion as the Congress’ working committee meets at 11 am on Saturday. Though there was no official word on the agenda for the meeting, sources have told ANI that the committee is expected to take stock of the party’s loss in Uttar Pradesh. Congress, despite extensive campaigning by Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, won just a single seat in Uttar Pradesh - Sonia Gandhi’s Raebareli Lok Sabha seat. Rahul, who represented the Amethi seat since 2004, lost to BJP’s Smriti Irani. In the last elections, the Congress had won 44 seats, the lowest in its history, and improved its tally marginally in the latest elections. Mamata’s TMC suspends Mukul Roy’s son from party In Bengal, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has called for a meeting of party leaders. The party’s disciplinary committee has also suspended BJP leader Mukul Roy’s son Subhranshu Roy for six years, after what the party has called were “sustained anti-party comments and praises for BJP” coming from Subhranshu. Roy told PTI he will join the BJP within a few days, a “new innings” in which he will be able to “breath freely”. Roy was the TMC legislator from Bijpur. “Now, I will breath freely. Many in the TMC feel suffocated,” he said, claiming that several others from the party will “follow his footsteps”. 20 students die in Surat fire The massive fire which engulfed a multi-storey building housing a coaching centre, located in the Sarthana area in Surat, has claimed as many as 20 lives, including that of several students. The Takshashila Complex caught fire and several students of a coaching centre situated in it were seen jumping off the building to escape the inferno. Some people were unable to escape and died on the spot due to suffocations. As the rescue operations were carried out, charred bodies of women and children were taken out. The fire was reportedly triggered by a short circuit. Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani has ordered an investigation and announced financial help of Rs 4 lakh each to the families of students who died in the tragedy. Several parties to meet to discuss election success With the YSR Congress all set to wrest power in Andhra Pradesh, its Legislature Party will meet and formally elect Jaganmohan Reddy as its leader. He will be sworn-in as chief minister on 30 May at Vijayawada. In Tamil Nadu’s Chennai, DMK MPs will meet in the aftermath of their sweeping victory. Party chief MK Stalin is expected to be present at the 5 pm meeting. BJP MPs from Delhi, Manoj Tiwari, Dr Harsh Vardhan, Meenakshi Lekhi, Ramesh Bidhuri, Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma, Gautam Gambhir and Hans Raj Hans, will address a press conference together at 12 noon. ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 warm-up matches to begin Virat Kohli-led India will get ready for their final round of preparations for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 when they take on Kane Williamson’s New Zealand in their first of the two warm-up matches. This match comes less than two weeks before India’s opening match against South Africa on 5 June and will be one more opportunity to settle the issue of the much-debated number four spot. In another warm-up match on Saturday, England will take on five-time winners and defending champions Australia. England captain Eoin Morgan is all set to miss the game after suffering a finger injury during a practice session. MacBook Pro 2019 teardown shows what Apple changed in the keyboard After Apple announced revisions to its infamous MacBook Pro keyboards, it was still unknown exactly what kind of changes were introduced. Now, iFixit has conducted a comprehensive teardown analysis of the revised MacBook Pro 2019 and it looks like there have been multiple material changes in the butterfly mechanism of the keyboard. Aziz Ansari hosts surprise gig in Mumbai Before his official tour in India, comedian Aziz Ansari surprised fans on Wednesday by doing a set at Todi Mill Social in Lower Parel, as a part of Indian comedian Varun Thakur’s show. He performed for nearly an hour, right after Thakur’s set, and touched upon US politics, racism and the #MeToo movement. The Indian-American actor and comedian, who was accused of sexual misconduct last year, also opened up abut the allegations during the set. He said that he felt scared and humiliated, calling it an “intense experience”, according to several reports.