By YP Rajesh and Chris Thomas
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Narendra Modi was sworn in as India’s prime minister on Sunday for a record-equalling third time period, however as a restive coalition’s head after a shock ballot setback that may check his skill to make sure coverage certainty on the earth’s most populous nation.
President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of workplace to Modi at a grand 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 international locations, Bollywood stars and industrialists.
Modi, who began as a publicist of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological father or mother of his Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP), is simply the second particular person after independence chief Jawaharlal Nehru to serve a 3rd straight time period as prime minister.
Modi, 73, secured the third time period in elections that concluded on June 1 with the help of 14 regional events in his BJP-led Nationwide Democratic Alliance (NDA), not like within the earlier two phrases when his occasion received an outright majority.
The end 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.
Modi delivered world beating development and lifted India’s international standing however appeared to have missed a step at house 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, due to this fact, 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 steadiness on the earth’s quickest rising economic system may additionally come underneath stress because of calls for for greater growth funds for states dominated by the NDA’s regional companions and a potential push by BJP to spend extra on welfare to woo again voters it misplaced on this 12 months’s election.
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 end result.
“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.