DR MANMOHAN Singh was sworn in as India’s prime minister for a second term yesterday alongside a 19-member cabinet after his Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance secured an impressive victory in the recent month-long national elections.
The 76-year old Oxbridge economist and his cabinet were administered the oath of office by President Pratibha Patil at a ceremony in the domed hall of the presidential palace in New Delhi.
The portfolios of those sworn-in have yet to be allocated as the dispute over the cabinet overshadowed the day. The DMK party, a key regional ally from southern India, threatened to quit the alliance if its MPs were not suitably rewarded with an adequate number of senior ministries.
According to Singh’s office, several more ministers are expected to be similarly sworn in next week following a resolution of the squabbling between alliance partners for cabinet berths.
But analysts said the Congress Party that won 206 seats on its own in the 543-member parliament is almost certain to retain the key finance, defence, foreign affairs and internal security portfolios for itself.
Along with allies, Singh’s administration enjoys a comfortable majority in parliament, well above the 272 MPs necessary for forming the government, after it routed its rival Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party at the polls.
Observers said it would offer its allies the railways, food, information technology and telecommunications ministries. Singh has insisted it will be a “responsive” and “efficient” government in his second term and in a speech to the newly elected Congress MPs earlier this week made a strong case for major and bold economic reforms.
More than 70 per cent of India’s population of some 1.2 billion lives on less than $2 day and for whom social economic and environmental justice remains a dream as the economic divide between the rich and poor grows exponentially.
Faced with India’s highest fiscal deficit since the early 1990s, Singh will have to prioritise labour law reforms and privatisation of loss- making public sector concerns besides increased spending on infrastructural and social programmes.
The new government will be under pressure to lift annual growth in Asia’s third-largest economy amid a global slump and contracting domestic demand by opening up foreign investment in infrastructure projects and the defence sector, augmenting employment and reducing government spending. On the security front, the spiralling Maoist insurgency spread across nearly a third of the country and incessant terrorist strikes and serial bombings in the recent past remain a vital area of improved focus for Singh.
In matters of foreign policy, he will have to deal cautiously but swiftly with his immediate neighbourhood wracked by turbulence with almost all the major south Asian states facing political chaos and internal conflict.
Islamic fundamentalists are threatening to overrun neighbouring nuclear rival Pakistan and Afghanistan while Sri Lanka faces problems of providing humanitarian assistance for tens of thousands of refugees displaced during the bitter fighting that recently ended the island’s 26-year long civil war by Tamil rebels to wrest a homeland for their minority community.