NEW CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist who won a landslide victory in India on Friday, has met senior leaders of his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) to begin the process of forming a government
India is still coming to terms with the scale of Modi's victory, which analysts say has entirely restructured the emerging economic power's political landscape.
In the Times of India, Sunil Khilnani, an author and academic, called the election a "genuinely revolutionary moment … a democratic asteroid".
No party other than the Congress party, which has ruled India for all but 18 of the 67 years since the country was split from Pakistan after independence, has ever held a majority. With existing allies, the broadly rightwing BJP now controls around 340 of the 543 elected seats in parliament while centre-left Congress has been reduced to 44 seats, a historic low. No party has won by such a margin since 1984.
On Saturday Modi was welcomed in Delhi by tens of thousands of supporters when he flew in from Gujarat, the state he has governed for 13 years. On Sunday fans gathered outside the BJP headquarters in the capital hoping for a sight of their leader.
"He is the man who will make India work again and make us great and proud," said Sanjay Thakur, a 41-year-old small businessman from the nearby state of Haryana.
Indian stock markets have reached record highs and the currency has rallied since the win.
The composition of Modi's government will now be keenly watched as an indication of what policies the 63-year-old activist-turned-politician will pursue in office. Many expect that he will further sideline the "old guard" within the BJP, relying instead on those with proven personal loyalty to him. Key figures who masterminded Modi's successful campaign strategy and communications are likely to be favoured, analysts say.
Modi's blending of nationalism with the promise of economic and cultural revival struck a chord with voters frustrated by faltering growth rates, shrinking job opportunities and inadequate public services. Support for the outgoing Congress government was undermined by a series of corruption scandals, rising food prices and a perception of political paralysis.
However, Modi is a deeply polarising figure whom many Muslims in India – around 14% of the population – fear. A former organiser in the country's biggest Hindu revivalist organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), he has been accused of failing to stop, or even encouraging, sectarian riots in which 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in Gujarat shortly after he took power there.
The violence followed an arson attack on a train full of Hindu pilgrims in which 59 died. Modi has always denied wrongdoing and a supreme court investigation found insufficient evidence to support the charges against him.
The former tea seller, who has never held office at national level, pledged in his first speech after learning of the scale of his victory to fulfil the dreams of all of India's 1.25 billion people. "I want to take all of you with me to take this country forward … it is my responsibility to take all of you with me to run this country," he said.
On Sunday, top BJP leaders were meeting counterparts in the RSS, seen as the ideological fountainhead of the party. A senior BJP official denied they would be taking orders from the RSS on who should be appointed to the new cabinet, saying the talks were part of many discussions under way.
"We come to the RSS headquarters and meet seniors. It is part of our life," M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters as he arrived at RSS headquarters in New Delhi.
Many close aides of Modi remain closely linked with the hardline organisation, which deployed hundreds of thousands of its members to canvas for the BJP candidate.
The new prime minister is expected to be sworn in later this week.
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