Indian PM Modi names cabinet for coalition government after his party lost majority

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s Narendra Modi, recently sworn in for a third consecutive term, on Monday named a cabinet that kept his top ministers in crucial portfolios despite his Hindu nationalist party losing its majority in a shocking election result. .

There was no change in the four main ministries. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who has led the country’s foreign policy for the last five years, has been given back the post of External Affairs Minister. Amit Shah will continue as India’s Home Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman will remain as Finance Minister and Rajnath Singh will continue as Defense Minister.

India’s six-week elections came to an end last week, in which Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party failed to secure a majority on its own after winning landslide victories in 2014 and 2019. However, his National Democratic Alliance coalition won enough seats to form the government, with him at the helm.

This is the first time the BJP under Modi needed the support of its regional allies to form a government after a decade commanding a majority in India’s parliament.

Final election results showed that Modi’s BJP won 240 seats, well short of the 272 needed for a majority. Together, the NDA coalition parties secured 293 seats in the 543-member lower house of parliament.

Modi, 73, is only the second Indian prime minister to win a third consecutive term.

On Sunday, he and 71 ministers took oath at India’s presidential palace, Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi. 61 of them were from the BJP, while the rest were the BJP’s NDA allies. Only seven of them were women, and none from the Muslim community, the largest minority group in India, whose political representation as legislators shrunk under Modi.

The results, which defied exit polls that predicted a landslide victory for the BJP, left Modi’s coalition government largely dependent on two key regional allies – the Telugu Desam Party in southern Andhra Pradesh state and Janata Dal (United) in eastern Bihar state – to remain in power. power. On Sunday, two legislators from each party were sworn in as ministers.

The surprising drop in support for the BJP means Modi needs the support of his regional allies to stay in power, and experts say he may have to. adapt to a governance style He’s not used to it.

A declared Hindu nationalist, Modi is considered a champion of the country’s Hindu majority, which represent 80% of India’s 1.4 billion population. His supporters credit him with rapid economic growth and improving India’s global standing since he came to power.

But critics say he also undermined India’s democracy and its status as a secular nation with attacks by Hindu nationalists against the country’s minorities, especially Muslims, and an ever-shrinking space for dissent and press freedom. His political opponents, who are now more encouraged than beforeThey also mobilized their campaign around their government’s mixed economic record, pointing to high unemployment and growing inequality despite strong growth, which, according to analysts, resonated with voters.