India’s ruling Congress-led alliance was set to return to power after taking a clear and commanding lead yesterday in vote-counting from the country’s marathon general elections.
As results poured in from the Election Commission, projections by TV news channels gave the Congress grouping as many as 250 seats against 160 for the main opposition bloc headed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“It is a decisive vote for the Congress,” party spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said as wild celebrations broke out at Congress headquarters in New Delhi.
PHOTO: AP
Although the Congress alliance was still expected to fall short of the 272 seats required for a majority in the 543-seat parliament, its apparent margin of victory was much wider than exit polls had predicted.
A shortfall of just 20 to 30 seats would allow it to pick and choose from India’s myriad regional parties to make up the numbers needed for a viable government.
Congress was expected to pick up more than 190 seats in its own right — the party’s best showing since 1991.
Outside the party headquarters, supporters banged drums and danced in the street, holding portraits of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Political analyst Neerja Choudhury said that India’s electorate of 714 million people had voted for stability.
“I feel that people did not want anything divisive in these times of uncertainty. They felt that Manmohan Singh, being an economist, can handle the economy for instance,” 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 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 yesterday was of a far more stable government that would be less vulnerable to the whims of its coalition partners.
“Based on the trends, I think it’s clear this government will last a full term,” political analyst Rasheed Kidwai said.
The mood at the BJP headquarters was subdued as the results rolled in.
“It is disappointing, we expected to do well and clearly we have not done,” said BJP spokesman Balbir Punj, adding that the party’s parliamentary board would meet later in the evening to “take stock” of the situation.
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.
The alliance will still need outside support to command a parliamentary majority, but a strong lead over the BJP alliance will make its task far easier.
Congress has spent much off the past week making overtures to the party’s former communist allies, who quit the coalition last year in protest at a nuclear deal with the US.
The Constitution states that a new government must be formed by June 2.
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
RSS