New Delhi: Manmohan Singh will be sworn in as Prime Minister on May 22. President Pratibha Patil appointed him to the post for the second time on Wednesday after the UPA led by Congress president Sonia Gandhi staked claim to form government at the Centre.

The two leaders, who handed a list of 322 MPs supporting the UPA to the President, earlier held a meeting of all pre-poll allies of the Congress-led coalition where a decision was taken to set up a small team to formulate the government’s agenda for the next five years.

Singh told the President that the UPA had 274 members including four independents, besides the support of 48 others from parties including the SP, BSP and RJD, taking the total tally to 322.

The process of government formation was set in motion at the UPA meeting earlier in the morning with Sonia Gandhi getting re-elected as chairperson of the alliance. Some alliance partners like the NCP and Trinamool also demanded the setting up of a steering committee to guide the UPA, but the Congress is understood to be against the idea.

The Congress, however, agreed to set up a small group to chalk out the government’s agenda, maintaining that it would be similar to the earlier CMP.

The insistence for a new CMP, party leaders said, stemmed from the need to accommodate state-specific demands from the regional parties. “For instance, the DMK would like to include the Setu Samudram issue, which may have to be codified in the CMP,” a party leader said. “A small group will be formed that will decide what are the issues in the manifestos of other parties which could be included,” AICC general secretary Janardan Dwivedi told reporters after the meeting.

The meeting also set in motion the process of negotiations for cabinet berths. Senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee and DMK chief M Karunanidhi held deliberations this evening, in which the latter asked for seven berths for his party, the same as last time. “We discussed the mechanism for participation in the government. We shared our views with each other as this is the first meeting. Further discussions are required,” Mukherjee told reporters after the meeting. He was accompanied by Ghulam Nabi Azad, Congress general secretary in-charge of Tamil Nadu, and political secretary to the Congress president, Ahmed Patel.