Government to accelerate reform agenda

NEW DELHI: The Indian government will now proceed full speed ahead on its unfinished reform agenda, a senior minister said on Thursday, two days after winning a trust vote in parliament.
 
"We are now more confident of carrying forward our task," Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi told reporters after a cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
 
"We will try to accelerate the unfinished tasks in the CMP (common minimum programme for governance)," the minister added, with the government now shorn of its Left baggage.
 
Asked about the mood in the cabinet at its first meeting after winning the trust vote, Dasmunsi initially said it was a "normal" meeting.
 
On being prodded further, he added: "It (the mood) was very good. We are very happy (over winning the trust vote)."
 
The government Tuesday won by 19 votes a confidence motion in parliament that was forced by the Left parties withdrawing their support to protest New Delhi's moves to make the India-US civil nuclear deal operational.
 
Dasmunsi replied in the negative when asked whether the expulsion from the Communist Party of India-Marxist of Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee had figured during the cabinet meeting.
 
"It was not on the agenda," he said.