By YP Rajesh and Chris Thomas
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Narendra Modi was sworn in as India’s prime minister on Sunday for a 3rd time period, after a shock ballot setback that can take a look at his capacity to make sure coverage certainty in a coalition authorities on the planet’s most populous nation.
President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of workplace to Modi at a ceremony on the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the president’s palace in New Delhi, attended by 1000’s of dignitaries, together with the leaders of seven regional nations, Bollywood stars and industrialists.
“Honoured to serve Bharat,” Modi posted on X, minutes earlier than he was sworn in, referring to India’s title in Indian languages.
Supporters cheered, clapped and chanted “Modi, Modi” because the title of the 73-year previous chief, wearing a white kurta tunic and blue half jacket, was known as to take his oath.
Modi was adopted by senior ministers within the earlier authorities: Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and Piyush Goyal, amongst others. Their portfolios are anticipated to be introduced after the swearing-in.
Modi, who began as a publicist of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological guardian of his Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP), is simply the second individual after independence chief Jawaharlal Nehru to serve a 3rd straight time period as prime minister.
Modi secured the third time period in elections that concluded on June 1 with the assist of 14 regional events in his BJP-led Nationwide Democratic Alliance (NDA), in contrast to within the earlier two phrases when his celebration gained an outright majority.
The result is seen as a giant setback to the favored chief as surveys and exit polls had predicted BJP would safe much more seats than in 2019.
COALITION CHALLENGES
Modi delivered world beating progress and lifted India’s world standing however appeared to have missed a step at dwelling as a scarcity of sufficient jobs, excessive costs, low incomes and non secular faultlines pushed voters to rein him in.
When Modi was the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014, BJP loved sturdy majorities, permitting him to manipulate decisively.
Modi’s new time period as prime minister, subsequently, is prone to be fraught with challenges on constructing consensus on contentious political and coverage points within the face of various pursuits of regional events and a stronger opposition, analysts say.
Some analysts fear that the fiscal stability on the planet’s quickest rising financial system may additionally come below stress because of calls for for larger growth funds for states dominated by the NDA’s regional companions and a doable push by BJP to spend extra on welfare to woo again voters it misplaced on this yr’s election.
Whereas the broad deal with constructing infrastructure, manufacturing and know-how may proceed, “contentious reforms could be delayed”, mentioned Samiran Chakraborty, Chief Economist, India, at Citi Analysis.
“The BJP’s major coalition partners are politically unpredictable, sometimes working with the BJP and sometimes working against them,” added Rick Rossow, the Chair in U.S.-India Coverage Research on the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research in Washington.
“The larger parties that will be a part of his coalition are mostly agnostic on national-level issues and should not be applying a brake on economic reforms or security ties with the United States, Japan, and other key partners,” he mentioned.
Modi, whose election marketing campaign was marked by spiritual rhetoric and criticism of the opposition for allegedly favouring India’s 200 million minority Muslims, has adopted a extra conciliatory tone because the shock consequence.
“We have won the majority … but to run the country it is unanimity that is crucial … we will strive for unanimity,” he mentioned on Friday after the NDA formally named him coalition head.
