Modi presents the new Government and the first measure for farmers

The BJP leader was sworn in this morning at the presidential palace. As after his victory in 2019, he has signed the launch of a new tranche of a financial aid program for farmers. The analysis of the election results confirmed the decline in the popularity of ultranationalists in rural areas. For the first time not a single Muslim in the 71-member executive.

New Delhi () – Narendra Modi was sworn in yesterday for a third term as prime minister, after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the coalition of which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a part, will win the elections by obtaining 293 seats. A smaller margin than predicted and which forced the BJP to rely on its allies in the government, especially the Telugu Desam Party and the Janata Dal (United).

“The opposition tried to present the results of the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) as a defeat for us. But we have not lost, we have never lost, we will never lose,” Modi declared on Friday after being elected leader of the NDA.

Along with the premier, 71 members of the Council of Ministers were also sworn in, including 30 cabinet ministers (that is, those who head a ministry), 33 ministers of State (who within a ministry deal with a specific area) and five ministers. of State with an independent position (who do not direct any ministry). This year, for the first time, there is no Muslim minister in the government, even though the premier had responded to opposition accusations by saying that the NDA was committed to respecting religious equality in the country.

The key ministries of Home, Defence, External Affairs and Transport were left in the hands of three Modi loyalists (Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, S. Jaishankar and Nikita Gadkari), while BJP allies, however, were given 11 portfolio ministries. : as several observers had predictedunlike the last two legislatures in which the BLP alone had the majority to govern, this time Modi will have to take into account the demands of the other parties to remain in government.

Empowering the poor and the middle class is our priority,” Prime Minister Modi has said in recent days. This morning, during the inauguration ceremony held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the presidential palace in Delhi, attended by some leaders from the region (in line with the prime minister’s “neighbors first” policy), Bollywood stars and businessmen, Modi said he will defend India’s sovereignty and integrity and govern with “true faith and loyalty to the Constitution.”

“I will do good to all kinds of people in accordance with the Constitution and the law, without fear or favor,” he added.

After taking the oath of office, the Indian prime minister announced a new delivery of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN), a financial assistance program that provides 6 thousand rupees (less than 67 euros) per year to eligible farmers. Already in 2019, shortly after winning the elections, Modi had taken the same measure. “Ours is a Government fully committed to the welfare of farmers”, a concept expressed as ‘Kisan Kalyan’ in Hindi. “We want to continue working even harder for farmers and the agricultural sector in the future,” he continued.

The government has allocated a budget of Rs 1.27 billion to the Ministry of Agriculture for the fiscal year 2024-2025, although the full budget is likely to be announced in July.

In the last 10 years of rule, Modi has lost the support of farmers. An analysis of the election results confirms this: in rural areas, the NDA saw a 2.2% decline in support, while the opposition alliance, led by the Congress party, saw its popularity increase by 18%. % in rural and peripheral areas.

In the state of Haryana, known as the “breadbasket” of India, the BJP had won all 10 seats available in 2019, while this year it only won five, losing the other half to the Congress, the party that leads the coalition. opposition called INDIA. In Rajasthan, where the state government had defected to Prime Minister Modi’s Hindu ultranationalist party in December, the BJP won 14 of 25 seats. Here too it had won them all in 2019. Several experts had cited the BJP’s declining popularity among farmers, alluding to the 2020-2021 protests that had forced the government to withdraw a series of pro-liberalization reforms. Even in February of this year, just two months after the elections, the farmers had marched to Delhi again, criticizing the government for failing to deliver on promises made after 2020: crop price guarantees, doubling farmers’ incomes, loan forgiveness. Perhaps this same element was underestimated in the pre-election polls that assumed a landslide victory for the BJP.