Victorious Modi fights tears in first address to Indian parliament
Modi vows to champion poor, avoids attacks on Congress amid sky-high expectations
Narendra Modi fought back tears in an emotional first address to his party in India’s colonnaded parliament house on Tuesday, after the Hindu nationalist swept to power in an election that has changed the face of politics in the country.
Modi will be India’s next prime minister after leading the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to a historic victory in a ballot that ended on Friday. He is likely to take his oath of office to lead the world’s biggest democracy on Monday.
The win handed the BJP its first parliamentary majority and reduced the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty’s ruling Congress party to 44 seats, the lowest ever tally for a party that won India’s independence and has ruled for most of the 67 years since.
Modi, 63, choked up and stopped his speech to drink water during his inaugural appearance in the round, colonial-era building.
He addressed BJP lawmakers filling more than half the seats of the lower house with uplifting words that commentators immediately contrasted with the often wooden addresses of his predecessor Manmohan Singh.
“It is proof of the strength of our constitution that a man from a poor family is standing here today,” said Modi, who sold tea on a railway platform as a child before entering politics. For the past 12 years he has governed the state of Gujarat.
