New Indian prime minister takes office

Vajpayee calls for 'clean' government

May 16, 1996
Web posted at: 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT)

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- India's first Hindu nationalist prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was sworn in Thursday and has until the end of May to prove his party can win majority backing in a deeply split parliament.

At a solemn ceremony in the presidential palace, President Shankar Dayal Sharma swore in Vajpayee and 11 cabinet members in a nationally televised event.

Afterward, the prime minister pledged a corruption-free government.

"It will be an honest, clean and sensitive government," he said.

India's business community reacted favorably. Two hours after Vajpayee took office, the stock exchange index in Bombay rose about 1.4 percent from its previous close.

Reign could be short

Sharma named Vajpayee to the post Wednesday to replace former Prime Minister Narashimha Rao, whose Congress Party was defeated in the general elections.

The Congress Party had ruled India for all but four years since the country won independence from Britain in 1947.

Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party emerged from the elections as the largest single-party winner. However, Vajpayee's stay in office could be short-lived. He has until May 31 to gather a majority in the 545-seat parliament, where the BJP controls one-third of the seats.

If the party has not garnered enough support by the deadline, the president can ask another party to form a government. If that were to occur, Vajpayee would go down in history as the head of India's briefest government.

Some members of parliament have vowed to push Vajpayee out of office, but BJP officials remain optimistic.

"In this configuration, the only stable government can be given by the BJP," said party president Lal Krishna Advani. "When people come to realize it is a good government, the possibility of more and more members of parliament joining will increase."

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related stories:

• Pivotal elections
• Vajpayee to become India's prime minister - May 15
• Indian leftists pick new prime minister candidate - May 14

Related site:

• BJP site

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