Emotional Modi pledges to serve ‘mother’ India

New Delhi: India’s prime minister-elect Narendra Modi, making his first visit to parliament since his election triumph, choked back tears on Tuesday as he urged party colleagues to dedicate themselves to serving the nation.

The 63-year-old leader bowed and kissed the steps of the building as he entered for a meeting of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its political allies, which elected him as leader in the national parliament.

Speaking in the central hall of the complex in New Delhi, Modi had to hold back tears in a rare public display of emotion by the hardliner known to his supporters as the ‘Lion of Gujarat’.

Other BJP figures could be seen weeping.

“I said this earlier and I say it again: That 125 crore [1.25 billion] Indians’ hopes and aspirations are embedded in this temple of democracy,” he said, later recalling his humble origins and the country’s independence fighters.

He said “the common man has got renewed self-confidence and faith in democracy” after the victory last Friday by the BJP, which won the first overall majority by a single party since 1984.

“For rural areas, farmers, dalits [low castes], weak and the pained, this government is for them,” he said. “To meet their aspirations and hopes, this is our responsibility because our weakest, poorest have sent us here.”

Modi broke down, having to pause and ask for a glass of water, while referring to his former mentor L K Advani and promising to serve the BJP and India as his “mother”.

Modi, chief minister of the western state of Gujarat since 2001, has been locked in talks since Sunday about the composition of his cabinet, which is expected to be sworn in next week.

He urged colleagues to show discipline and commit themselves to hard work.

“This joy, celebration will continue but this marks the beginning of the era of responsibility,” he said.

With thunderous applause and shouts of “Long live Modi!” the 282 BJP members, who comfortably make up a majority in the 543-seat house, officially chose him as their parliamentary leader, one of several formalities before he is sworn in.

The parliamentarians, who travelled from as far afield as the icy Himalayan plateaus and the palm-fronded southern tip of the subcontinent, included dozens who, like Modi, are first-time MPs.

Dressed in clothes ranging from multi-coloured Rajasthani turbans to bright saris and white cotton pyjama suits, the members listened as Modi paid homage to party elders he pushed aside in his rise to power.

He also avoided criticism of the outgoing Congress party, saying all of India’s governments had worked for the good of the country.

Party president Rajnath Singh was less conciliatory, saying that Modi’s victory meant the BJP had replaced Congress as the natural party of government in India.

“With pride we can say that we are members of a party that is now bigger than the Congress in stature,” said Singh. “Before the 2014 elections, politics used to be BJP versus Congress, now it’s BJP versus the others.”

Modi also cast his view forward and promised to repeat his tireless campaigning in five years’ time to take the BJP to an unprecedented two full consecutive terms in office.

The Indian Express newspaper reported on Tuesday that Modi’s office had already written to senior bureaucrats asking them to prepare presentations to explain their work and any problems they had encountered.

The new government is expected to focus initially on trying to remove bottlenecks that have seen many industrial and infrastructure projects stalled for lack of clearances.

The make-up of the new cabinet remains shrouded in secrecy, but reports suggest lawyer and senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley is the front-runner for the finance portfolio, while BJP president Rajnath Singh could get the home ministry.