DHAKA: A day before the 50th death anniversary of first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, President Pranab Mukherjee will swear in as PM a leader who has led the most successful political assault on the Nehruvian consensus, India's governance mantra since Independence barring the NDA interlude.

Narendra Modi's eight-month-long campaign, which culminates at 6pm Monday with his swearing-in as India's 15th Prime Minister, has seen him casting himself as a legatee of fellow Gujarati Vallabhbhai Patel and insisting that the Sardar had deserved to be, and would have made a better PM than Nehru.

Modi is not coming in as a revolutionary out to upturn the established order, but there is little doubt that Rashtrapati Bhavan's looming masonry will be witness to not just a change of regime, but perhaps a change of era and of political discourse. If the reports that have appeared in the media, including this paper, are any indication of the shape of things to come, then the 63-year-old leader can be expected to upset the status quo. For some, it promises to be exciting, for others, unsettling.

Along with Modi, around 40 ministers from BJP and allies are expected to be sworn in — about half the sanctioned numbers of the council of ministers pegged at 15% of the Lok Sabha strength.

The representation from allies will be restricted, with prominent leaders like Ramvilas Paswan of LJP, Anant Seethe of Shiv Sena and Ashok Gajapathi Raju of TDP likely to take oath. A later expansion will see allies being given full representation.

But these could end up as almost incidental details in the unspooling political change. Having led NDA to an unprecedented 336 seats of which BJP won 282, Modi's swearing-in marks the arrival of a leader who revels in his 'outsider' status and is an enigma for Delhi's entrenched durbari culture.

Source: TOI

BDST: 0838 HRS, MAY 26, 2014