NEW DELHI, May 16 (AFP) - India's ruling Congress-led alliance surged to a commanding election victory Saturday, crushing its Hindu nationalist rivals and setting up a second term for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
With results still coming in from the Election Commission, the Congress grouping was on track to win as many as 260 seats against 160 for the main opposition bloc headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
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| Congress party chief Sonia speaks during a news conference where she said Manmohan Singh would be the prime minister. Reuters |
“The people of India have spoken and they have spoken with great clarity,”Manmohan Singh told a joint press conference with Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Although the Congress alliance was still expected to fall short of the 272 seats required for a majority in the 543-seat parliament, its projected margin of victory was much greater than exit polls had predicted.
A shortfall of just 20 or so seats would allow it to pick and choose from India's myriad regional parties to make up the numbers needed for a viable government.
“I would expect all secular parties ... to come together to give this country a stable, strong, purposeful government,” Singh said, adding that it was time for India to show the world that it “stands as one as a nation.”Congress was expected to pick up as many as 200 seats in its own right -- the party's best showing since 1991.
Conceding defeat, the Hindu nationalist BJP admitted that the results were “far below” expectations.
“We accept this verdict of the people,” senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said, adding that the party would have to take “collective responsibility” for the defeat. The result was a personal blow for the veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani, 81, for whom this election was almost certainly the last chance to become prime minister.
Outside the Congress party headquarters in New Delhi, supporters celebrated into the evening, banging drums and dancing in the street.
Political analyst Neerja Choudhury said India's 714-million electorate had voted for stability.
“I feel that people did not want anything divisive in these times of uncertainty,” Choudhury said.
After five successive years of near-double digit growth that lent the country the international clout it has long sought, the Indian economy has been badly hit by the global downturn.
And there are major security concerns over growing instability in South Asia, particularly in arch-rival Pakistan, with whom relations plunged to a new low following last year's bloody militant attack on Mumbai.
Exit polls had predicted that only a handful of seats would separate the Congress and BJP alliances -- a scenario that had prompted gloomy forecasts of a badly hung parliament that would throw up a weak, patchwork coalition. The picture that emerged Saturday was of a far more stable government that would be less vulnerable to the whims of its coalition partners.
“The people of India know what is good for them and they always make the right choice,” Sonia Gandhi said.
Congress spokeswoman Ambika Soni said party leaders and their allies would meet later in the day to discuss how they would go about building the support they need to govern India's 1.1 billion people.
Before today’s result, conventional wisdom dictated that the Congress alliance would need its former communist partners who withdrew from the ruling coalition last year in protest over a nuclear deal with the United States. But the Left was trounced in its stronghold states of West Bengal and Kerala, leaving its leaders to concede that it had lost any kingmaker status.
According to the constitution, a new government must be in place by June 2.
Chidambaram wins by 3,500 after losing by 3,000
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| Chidambaram |
CHENNAI, May 16 (IANS): Home minister P Chidambaram won the Sivaganga Lok Sabha seat in Tamil Nadu on Saturday after two recounts, poll officials said here.
Congress candidate Chidambaram was finally declared winner by about 3,500 votes over his nearest rival, Raja Kannappan of the AIADMK.
Chidambaram had first been declared defeated, by about 3,000 votes, after which he sought a recount. On recount, he was found to be the winner, following which Kannappan wanted a recount.
There was violence during the second recount, with AIADMK workers clashing with the police near the counting centre, police officials said here.
Poll officials said that after the second recount, Chidambaram was still found to be the winner. |
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