Campaigning in parliamentary elections, India’s Congress party vowed to look out for the interests of the common man if voters returned it to power.

Less than two months after its biggest election victory in 20 years, the party kept that compact. Pranab Mukherjee, the finance minister, unveiled a budget that will pump money into rural India – which is home to 60 per cent of the country’s 1.1bn people, many of whom are still mired in grinding poverty.