EVEN before the new government announced the schedule for the budget session of the parliament and the date when it would present its first budget has come worrisome news on the economic front. This has two dimensions – one for India Inc. and the other for the vast majority of our people. As we noted in these columns earlier, post-elections is the payback time for those who heavily financed the BJP election campaign and forcefully projected Narendra Modi as the `messiah’ of India Inc.

ADMITTEDLY it is too early to comment upon the functioning of the new government. The president of India, as is customary after every general elections, will address the joint session of the parliament after the newly-elected MPs are administered their `oath’ and the Lok Sabha elects its speaker. This address is scheduled only on Monday, June 9, 2014. In this speech, the president of India outlines the general blueprint of the work that `his’ government intends to do. This usually prioritises the government’s promises that will be undertaken/fulfilled during the first 100 days.

THE president of India has appointed Narendra Modi as the country’s 14th prime minister on the strength of his election as the leader of the BJP parliamentary group following the BJP’s electoral victory. The acceptance of the people’s verdict always comes with the expectations that the government that follows will pursue a set of policies and programmes that will provide the people with a better quality of life.

AS we go to press, the penultimate eighth phase of this marathon nine-phase general election has been completed. Though only one phase is left, this would be a decisive phase in certain states like West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. While the polls have, by and large, not been marred by large-scale violence and terror, there have been notable exceptions. During the last phase, the third phase in West Bengal, large-scale reports of terror intimidation and booth capturing by the ruling party in the state, Trinamool Congress, have been reported.

THE duality in the BJP’s election campaign is getting exposed. At the top, there is a veneer of Modispeak about “development” and promise of good governance and employment. Lurking beneath is an intense communal campaign which is specially concentrated in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.