Congress powers UPA to another term in office

India's ruling Congress-led coalition Saturday won a spectacular victory in the staggered Lok Sabha election, puncturing a disparate opposition, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh set to govern the world's largest democracy for five more years.

The party has won 76 seats and was leading in 129 others in a House of 543, its best performance after 1991 when it secured 244 seats.

And with allies DMK and Trinamool Congress, who have done exceedingly well, the Congress-led UPA is poised to get 257 seats, close to majority in the Lok Sabha without the need for allies like the Left parties.

The NDA led by BJP was far behind at 166 seats with the saffron party alone winning 50 seats and was ahead in 67 others.
BJP ally Shiv Sena has won 3 seats and was ahead in 8 while other allies Akali Dal was ahead in 4. Its another ally RLD has one one seat and was ahead in four.

The Third Front, including the Left parties, was ahead in 76 constituencies while the Fourth Front comprising RJD and SP was leading in 26 seats.

On its road to victory, the Congress humbled the Left Front in its bastions of West Bengal and Kerala and put up an impressive showing in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu that vastly tilted the scales in favour of the UPA. The party also did well in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana.

PM to resign tomorrow, new govt formation in two days
New Delhi, May 16 (PTI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will resign tomorrow and the process for formation of a new government headed by him is expected to be completed by Monday.
Singh and rest of the Cabinet will resign tomorrow, Congress sources told PTI after the Prime Minister met party chief Sonia Gandhi at her residence.
Subsequently, a meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Board will be called which will be followed by a meeting of UPA, they said.
The entire process will be completed in a couple of days, the sources said.

Earlier, the Prime Minister said he would try to persuade Rahul Gandhi to join the Cabinet.
Soon after it became clear that Congress had emerged as the single largest party, a stream of senior leaders reached 10-Janpath residence of Sonia Gandhi. A large number of party supporters had gathered outside her residence to celebrate Congress' victory.

Union Ministers A K Antony, Arjun Singh and Kapil Sibal, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and her son and MP Sandeep, Gandhi's Political Secretary Ahmed Patel, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Oscar Fernandes and former Home Minister Shivraj Patil were among those who met the Congress chief today.

Four hours after the millions of votes polled in the April-May election began to be counted, the BJP reluctantly conceded defeat while the Congress said the people's mandate was for a stable government.

Congress spokesperson and Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said: "This is a vote for (party president) Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh's leadership. People have voted for a stable government, they want a prime minister who thinks for the country."
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar summed up the UPA mood saying: "There will be a stable government now. And the country needs that stability. It is an excellent verdict."
"We concede defeat," said a visibly disappointed Sushma Swaraj of BJP, which had launched an aggressive campaign targeting Manmohan Singh and his style of governnace and was supremely confident of returning to power after a five-year gap.

The BJP, which had won 138 seats five years ago, now dropped its tally to a disappointing 100. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was in the race to win 162 seats -- less than the Congress' individual strength.

The worst sufferer was the Third Front, made up primarily of the Communists and regional groups who had sought to topple the Manmohan Singh government last year over the India-US nuclear deal. The Third Front, which had expected to play a kingmaker's role, would win just 84 seats.

The Communist Party of India (CPI), India's second oldest party, was expected to win just three seats -- its worst showing since the country's first general elections of 1952. CPI's D. Raja admitted: "We need to do some introspection."
The Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), which broke away from the Congress to fight the Lok Sabha election on their own, were routed in their bastions Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
The highlights of the elections, which most pundits had expected to be a cliffhanger, included a dramatic Congress revival in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state it once lorded over before being reduced as an also ran over the past two decades. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which rules Uttar Pradesh, put up a poor showing, in contrast to earlier claims that it could win up as many as 50 of its 80 Lok Sabha seats.

The DMK, a key Congress ally, stunned everyone by coming on top in Tamil Nadu, which accounts for 39 valuable seats, proving wrong pundits who had predicted a rout for it. DMK leaders said voters had not been swayed by emotions raised over the war against the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.

The Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which only in March divorced the BJP after 11 long years, swept Orissa. In Andhra Pradesh, actor Chiranjeevi's newly formed Praja Rajyam Party put up a strong showing, undercutting both the Congress and the main opposition Telugu Desam Party.
The Congress swept Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab in the northern belt besides Kerala in the deep south.