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Narendra Damordardas Modi took oath of office and secrecy as the 15^th Prime Minister of India, May 26, after leading Bharatiya Janata Party to an unanticipated historic victory of 282 seats (272 seats being the cut off mark for a simple majority) and 336 seats along with allies of National Democratic Alliance.

For the first time in history a non-Congress party stamped its authority in major states with the exception of a loss from Amritsar for Arun Jaitley to Congress’ Amrinder Singh.

Though in Amethi, U.P., the Congress vice president, Rahul Gandhi, did manage to scrape with a little over a hundred thousand votes against Smriti Irani of BJP, the former was reduced to a bundle of nerves during election rounds and first part of counting session.

A quick glance of BJP’s win -- all 26 seats in Gujarat, 10 out of 11 seats in Chhattisgarh, 27 out of 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh, all 7 seats in Delhi, 41 out of 48 seats (with Shiv Sena) in Maharashtra, 28 out of 40 seats in Bihar, 12 out of 14 seats in Jharkhand, 7 out of 10 seats in Haryana, a sweep in Rajasthan, and both seats in Goa.

While Congress (43 seats), Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (U) in Bihar and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party stood thoroughly destroyed, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party suffered a major drubbing and maximum candidates of Aam Admi Party lost their security deposits.

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(Above): Indian President Pranab Mukherjee (l) administering the Oath of Office of the Prime Minister to Narendra Modi at a swearing-in ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi, May 26. [Press Information Bureau]

For the man of the 2014 elections, Modi deserves all plaudits as born in 1950 in a backward family of petty grocers, he had had to work his way in life and up each rung of political ladder first as a tea seller, canteen boy in Railways to a full time propagandist for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh since 1970 and finally becoming a key strategist of BJP in 1995 along with managing a post-graduate degree in political science.

A long tenure in power with multiple innings as Chief Minister of western state of Gujarat which provided him a chance to implement his Gujarat model of development as well as courting controversy from all quarters for being a polarizing figure did teach Modi how to play the pitch and far better than most he was pitted against.

His masterstroke can be gauged by the speed with which he handed out invites to heads of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation nations (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and a government representative from Bangladesh), to attend his swearing-in ceremony and extended his election slogan, “Sab ka saath, sab ka vikaas” (Along with everyone, for everyone’s development) to neighboring nations.

The grand ceremony was conducted at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan (President’s House) in a never before seen style with a huge galaxy of leaders, political heads, film stars and other luminaries gracing the event and a massive deployment of more than 10,000 personnel being pressed into service.

A small and compact cabinet, full of young energy and free from nebulous and meddlesome approaches and colliding egos could well be a sign of clear skies ahead.

The official communiqué read, “The focus is on convergence in the activities of various ministries where one cabinet minister will be heading a cluster of ministries who are working in complimentary sectors … Mr. Modi is eventually aiming at smart governance where the top layers of government will be downsized and there would be expansion at the grass roots level.”

Portfolio distribution and prominent ministers in charge reads: Rajnath Singh as Home Minister, Sushma Swaraj as External Affairs Minister; Arun Jaitley doubling up as Finance and Defense Minister; Nitin Gadkari as Minister of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways; Venkaiah Naidu as Minister of Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation; Jitendra Singh as Minister of State in Prime Minister’s Office and Department of Personnel, and Minister of State with Independent Charge of Science and Technology, Earth Science; Piyush Goel as Minister of State for Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy; Harsh Vardhan as Health Minister; Smriti Irani as Human Resources Development Minister; D.V. Sadananda Gowda as Railways Minister; Ravi Shankar Prasad as Minister of Communication and Information and Technology, and Law Minister; Uma Bharti as Minister of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation; Najma A. Heptulla Minister for Minority Affairs; ***Gopinathrao Munde [recently deceased]*** as Rural Development Minister, Panchayati Raj, Drinking Water and Sanitation; Kalraj Mishra as Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises; Ananthkumar as Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers; Maneka Gandhi as Minister of Women and Child Development; Jual Oram as Tribal Affairs Minister; Radha Mohan Singh as Agriculture Minister; Narendra Singh Tomar as Minister of Restructured Mines and Steel, and Labor and Employment; Thaawar Chand Gehlot in charge of Social justice and Empowerment; General (Retd) V.K. Singh as Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region and Junior Minister in External Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs ministries; Inderjit Singh Rao as Minister of State for Planning, Statistics and Program Implementation, and Minister of State of Defense Ministry; Dharmendra Pradhan as Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas; Prakash Javadekar as Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs; Nirmala Sitharaman as Minister of State of Commerce and Industry Ministry, and for Finance and Corporate Affairs; Santosh Gangwar as Minister of State for Textiles and for Parliamentary Affairs, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation; Shripad Yesso Naik as Minister of State for restructured Culture and Tourism; Anant Geethe as Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Ashok Gajapathi Raju as Minister of Civil Aviation, Ram Vilas Paswan as Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Harsimrat Kaur Badal as Minister of Food Processing Industry.

The Prime Minister has taken up Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Space and as per the official statement he will call the shots on policy issues and be in charge of ministries not allotted to a specific minister.

This is in accordance with the replication of the successful Gujarat system where policy making and compliance achieved predictability and uniformity and on the central scale is expected to usher in new primacy accorded to the Prime Minister’s Office.

Wasting not a moment and true to his style of functioning, Modi embarked on his first day in PM’s South Block office by presiding a Cabinet meeting that resolved to form a Special Investigation Team headed by a retired Supreme Court judge M.B. Shah to crack down on illicit money mostly stashed in offshore tax havens, channelized in real estate, manufacturing or purchase of gold and consumer products.

This stands in line with public clamor during nationwide anti-corruption movements for investigations against guilty.

Modi also met Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Afghan President Hamid Karzai but his bilateral talks with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif took center stage as Sharif flew down to New Delhi defying his country’s hard-line elements.

Sharif’s aide described the meeting as “excellent, warm and friendly” and mentioned Sharif’s intention to “pick up the threads with India’s new leader from where he and then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee left off in 1999.”

Though he refused to divulge any more information, it is learnt that Modi conveyed to Sharif that India expects Pakistan to ensure fast trial in Mumbai attack case and his country’s commitment to prevent its territory from being used for terror.

A strong and decisive political center, willing to do business and upping the scale of engagement is a welcome sign to both India and other nations.

For the government delivering on people’s aspirations of reigning in of price rise, poverty alleviation and job creation as well as on national interest by setting a new tone in geopolitics and regional security will be key yardsticks in their future report cards.

A party that is riding the wave of mass disillusionment with the Congress has to deliver on all promises of ‘hope, change, progress, law and order and right direction’ it has made to the citizens.

Will Modi be able to translate his big words into action as also correct asymmetries in state-citizen relationships is what the nation and the world is watching breathlessly.