The burden of expectations

Narendra Damodardas Modi became the country’s fifteenth Prime Minister on Monday, fulfilling a wish he has worked towards for about two years, though he was named the BJP’s PM nominee only late last year.

Mr Modi’s swearing-in out in the open — in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan — is likely to have been witnessed by millions across South Asia on their television screens — not just India — as top leaders of all SAARC nations, and Mauritius, were invited to attend. It is in this respect that the grand event is likely to be different from the swearing-in at the same venue of former PMs Atal Behari Vajpayee and Chandra Sekhar.

Mr Modi becomes the first PM of a non-Congress party to be elected with a comfortable majority of his own. Mr Vajpayee, his BJP predecessor, had led a coalition government. With his image as a doer, the new Prime Minister carries a burden of expectations which are within his powers to fulfil, as far as own party parliamentary numbers go.

Soon after the new leader took the oath of office, the PM’s official website noted that his mandate was “for development and stability”. To begin with, Mr Modi has begun with a team of 45 colleagues to fulfil this goal. They were sworn in by President Pranab Mukherjee right after the PM. There is a lone Muslim minister in Najma Heptullah.

Mr Modi’s team does not look all that lean and mean although he was expected to have a small, tight Cabinet and not a large council of ministers. The BJP PM has 24 ministers of Cabinet rank compared to 28 of the Manmohan Singh government, which had strong coalition compulsions. The ministers of state with independent charge also appear the same in both cases. However, Mr Modi has only 10 ordinary ministers of state while his predecessor had 32. States like Rajasthan, Gujarat and MP, where the BJP picked up most seats, have not yet found adequate representation. So, the number of ministers could rise.  

The distribution of the Cabinet-level portfolios is along expected lines. It is interesting, however, that the PM has not yet been able to zero in on a full-time defence minister. This has not happened before. The position is likely to go to Arun Jaitley, who is also expected to be finance minister.

Although Rajnath Singh, the BJP president, has emerged as the virtual number two as he is expected to get the Union home ministry, Mr Jaitley has attracted admiration due to the possibility of bagging two powerful portfolios. BJP mentors L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi do not yet know what awaits them, though Sushma Swaraj, another Modi opponent, is expected to be the external affairs minister.