Modi begins talks for new cabinet after big election win
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold talks on Friday to form a new cabinet to tackle a stuttering economy and other challenges facing his second term after winning a big majority.
Official data from the Election Commission showed Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party had won 296 of the 542 seats up for grabs and was ahead in seven more, up from the 282 it won in 2014.
The BJP would have the first back-to-back majority in the lower house of parliament for a single party since 1984. Votes will be fully counted by Friday morning.
After a rancorous and a polarising election campaign, the focus shifts back to an economy that is slowing, even as the U.S.-China trade war rages and global oil prices tick higher.
“While the macroeconomic picture looks stable and promising, many important segments need support from the government,” BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav wrote in a column in the Indian Express daily.
“India cannot completely remain insulated from the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China or the geo-strategic conflict between the U.S. and Iran,” he added.
Later on Friday Modi will meet with his ministers to discuss forming a new cabinet, a government spokesman said.
He has not yet set an inauguration date for the administration, but BJP officials said he was expected to move quickly to put together a new cabinet.
An immediate decision will be whether to keep senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley as finance minister despite his poor health, or assign Railways and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal to the job of leading Asia’s third largest economy.
Goyal, 54, had stepped into the role twice in the Modi government when Jaitley was ill. Goyal presented an interim budget before the election and a full budget is due after the new government takes office.