Vajpayee was sworn in this morning with a team of 69 ministers in the shadow of Tuesday's dramatic coup by the Army in Pakistan.

There was little time to revel and celebrate and Vajpayee's preoccupied air underlined the work at hand. He drove off as soon as the ceremony ended without giving the customary soundbyte to waiting journalists.

Unlike last year's ashen-faced Prime Minister, who was deprived of the prerogative of choosing his Finance Minister by inner party pulls and pressures, Vajpayee today looked confident and determined. His businesslike attitude permeated the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan and in accommodating the largest Council of Ministers so far, he seemed to be signalling his desire to put politics on the backburner for the time being and get on with governance.

Vajpayee still has to finetune thedistribution of portfolios among his huge team. Many ministries will have to be split and fresh ones created to accommodate 69 persons.

Vajpayee has by and large managed to balance regional, caste and gender aspirations with the demands of his allies and his own party for adequate representation. But some decisions defy explanation.

For example, there are as many as five ministers from Mumbai alone - Pramod Mahajan, Ram Naik and Jayawantiben Mehta of the BJP, Manohar Joshi of the Shiv Sena and Ram Jethmalani. This is in addition to three others from Maharashtra.

As expected, the Bihar contingent is the largest with six BJP ministers and five from the JD (U).

There were rumblings among the 29-MP strong BJP contingent from Uttar Pradesh which felt that five berths, including that of the Prime Minister, was far too little representation for this large state.

Meanwhile, BJP's largest ally, Telugu Desam Party has ruled out review of its decision not to join the Vajpayee-led NDA but hinted that it waskeen on retaining the Lok Sabha Speaker's post.

"It is not a new decision. We will support NDA from outside and have not joined NDA. There is no reason for a review," TDP chief and Andhra pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu told reporters adding the party would extend support to the coalition government at the Centre "without any condition".

Replying to questions, he said the TDP support to Vajpayee government was not issue-based.

The women brigade led by fiery Mamata Banerjee has stormed into the Union council of ministers capturing eight of the 70 slots to treble their strength as compared to just three in the outgoing ministry.

Yet it is a far cry from the commitment of the NDA to give one-third representation to women in Parliament and state legislatures.

Except Mamata Banerjee, the fire brand Trinamool Congress leader from Calcutta and Maneka Gandhi, the Independent from Pilibhit, all others belonged to BJP in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government.