When India threw out a pro-growth government in an election shock this month, many saw it as the revenge of the rural poor. India's economy had been booming but they had been left out.
But as the left-backed Congress party coalition taking power this weekend scrambled to put together economic policy that will reflect the vote, analysts said the new rulers could not ignore the old reform policies. Rather, they will be embraced.
The new government will continue the reforms launched in 1991, albeit with a new face. India just cannot afford to turn its back on a programme that has given it a 7-8 percent annual growth rate, among the highest in the world, the analysts said.
"The reforms will continue, it doesn't really matter who is there," said Surjit Bhalla, managing director of Oxus Fund Management. "Rhetoric is part and parcel of the game. A little bit of political emphasis, especially just after an election, is fine."
The country's markets tumbled when it became clear left-wing parties would provide pivotal support to Congress. They surged when the original architect of the reform programme, former finance minister Manmohan Singh, was designated prime minister.
But the markets have been volatile since, as they anxiously await the effect the vote will have on policy.
Conventional wisdom has it that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance was ousted because the reforms it promoted did not bring water, power and roads to the countryside where 70 percent of India's one billion people live.
China has lopsided growth as well, but there the disaffected can't vote out the Communists, these pundits say.
That may be correct, but only partially. Many other factors also emerged in the Indian elections - local issues, the anti-incumbency phenomenon, in which a party in power is always at a disadvantage, and the fact that the Congress party had more successful coalition partners.
And while the new Congress-led coalition has promised a suitable policy response which will accommodate rural demands, it is becoming clear the reforms will not suffer.
"We need reforms, and we will push forward reforms, but reforms with a human face - those reforms that provide relief, a ray of hope to India's common people," Singh said at his first major news conference as prime minister-elect on Thursday.
In a nod to his left-wing allies, he also said the new government would not privatise profitable state enterprises, as the BJP-led administration had planned.
Bhalla of Oxus Fund Management said that would be about it.
"Besides the privatisation story and a slight change in emphasis, especially in the rhetoric, nothing substantial will change and nothing substantial should change," he said.
Some have worried that a revenue gap from any slowdown in privatisation and increased rural spending may put additional fiscal pressure on the government. Other analysts say that need not be so.
Asset sales earned the last government 154 billion rupees ($3.4 billion) in the year through March 2004 and helped limit its fiscal deficit to 4.8 percent of gross domestic product.
"If it's politically important for the government to demonstrate that it is committed to the village, then let it transfer resources in a fashion which does not demolish some other area," said Saumitra Chaudhuri, economic adviser at domestic credit rating agency ICRA.
"If it's done in a way, which is fiscally transparent, politically actionable and does not have collateral damage, it's feasible."
Crucial among rural needs are irrigation and water management, which will allow multi-cropping and therefore a rise in agricultural productivity, power generation and more roads.
Social infrastructure requirements like education and health also need more attention.
"We need a totally integrated thrust which can do all these things without necessarily compromising the programme of reducing the deficit," said Sudipto Mundle, India chief economist for the Asian Development Bank.
"It's all do-able. Technically, these are not big problems, it's a question of politically moving in this direction and I think the electorate has given very strong signals".
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