NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister-elect Manmohan Singh vowed yesterday to revive growth and spread the benefits of economic expansion that swept his coalition back to power with a decisive mandate in a general election.
Manmohan, 76, formally elected by lawmakers of his Congress party as their leader, said his coalition would pursue reforms in agriculture, industry and the wider economy to spread the benefits to the country’s 1.1. billion population.
“There is some slowing down of investment and employment generation. We have to revive growth and make it even more inclusive,” he said in an acceptance speech as MPs thumped desks.
Two powerful regional parties from northern India said they would support the Congress party-led coalition, further strengthening the stability of the new government.
Heads of the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi party, two major groups in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, said they had written to Indian President Pratibha Patil pledging their support to the coalition. The two parties have 44 lawmakers in Parliament between them.
Manmohan’s coalition won 262 seats in the 545-member Parliament, just 10 seats short of a majority, boosting hopes of a stable government. Congress campaigned during the monthlong election on a record of spending on the rural poor, including a public jobs program in the countryside and a costly loan waiver program for indebted farmers.
Manmohan said it was important to sustain a high growth rate to make it more inclusive, but that would require new investment and better management of public finances.
Growth in Asia’s third-largest economy is expected to slow to a seven-year low of about 6 percent this fiscal year from about 7 percent in 2008/09, and from rates of 9 percent or more in the previous years. Millions of jobs have already been lost.
Analysts say an expansionary fiscal policy could further stretch public finances and widen the deficit, which is running at about 10 percent of the gross domestic product.
But Congress leaders say the fiscal deficit is not an immediate concern compared to the pressing need to uplift millions of poor who gave the party its biggest mandate since 1984 in the vote, the world’s biggest democratic exercise.
“The five years in front of us could well be a decisive half-decade. If we can sustain the growth rates of the last five years, we can reduce poverty, create new employment, accelerate rural development and industrialization and transform the lives of our people,” Manmohan said. “We must grasp the nettle firmly and forge ahead.”
Earlier, Congress party head Sonia Gandhi proposed Manmohan as the parliamentary party leader, setting the stage for his appointment as prime minister.
Two Congress officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Pranab Mukherjee, who was foreign minister in the previous coalition, may be named as the country’s new finance minister.
Mukherjee, a veteran politician, had been looking after the Finance Ministry since January when Manmohan who held the finance portfolio had heart surgery.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi yesterday met Manmohan and Sonia amid speculation that the DMK is eyeing meaty Cabinet portfolios. Karunanidhi was accompanied by his son M.K. Azhagiri, daughter Kanimozhi, grandnephew Dayanidhi Maran, a former telecommunications minister, and T.R. Baalu, also a former minister in the UPA government.
A beaming Sonia greeted the DMK patriarch at her 10 Janpath residence and wrapped a shawl around him in a gesture of respect. After meeting Gandhi, Karunanidhi met Manmohan at his 7 Race Course Road residence.
— With input from agencies
