COALITION NEGOTIATIONS SET TO START
Top BJP leaders were due to discuss ministerial portfolios with the allies on Thursday, a day before Modi is expected to meet President Droupadi Murmu to present his claim to form the next government, one BJP source said.
The negotiations are a throwback to an era before 2014 – when Modi swept to power with an outright BJP majority – in which alliance partners haggled for positions and benefits in exchange for supporting coalition governments.
The BJP’s loss of its majority unnerved markets and raised the prospect of a government less stable and sure-footed than the outgoing one.
But Shivraj Singh Chouhan, a top BJP leader and newly elected lawmaker, told the CNN-News18 TV channel that Modi’s new government would last its full five-year term and “come back with a better performance”.
A survey published on Thursday suggested that a lack of jobs, high inflation and falling income had cost Modi votes, even though he personally still commanded wide support.
Some 30 per cent of voters said they were worried about inflation, compared to 20 per cent prior to the election, according to the Lokniti-CSDS post-election survey published by the Hindu newspaper.
In a survey for the Hindu conducted before the election, unemployment had been the main concern of 32 per cent of respondents.
Decreasing income and the government’s handling of corruption and fraud were other issues of concern, according to the survey.
