Spectacular Congress show

Sonia leads UPA to stunning win; Singh will remain PM; BJP, Left parties crushed

Belying all forecasts—even its won expectations—the Congress crossed the 200-mark in the 545-member Lok Sabha.

And, along with its UPA allies, it registered a near-majority status in the 15th Lok Sabha.

The Congress-led UPA was poised to win at least 260 seats, just 13 short of reaching the simple majority mark of 273.

The unexpectedly emphatic manner of the victory is a resounding one for the Congress and the UPA came as a reinforcement of Sonia’s leadership and Manmohan Singh’s Prime Ministership.

 Also emerging as the leader from this spectacular show was Rahul Gandhi as the party recorded a remarkable recovery in the key state of Uttar Pradesh where he had extensively campaigned.

The mandate rendered all calculations about the post-counting hunt for new allies to prop up the next coalition government redundant as the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ended a distant second in the race, almost 100 seats behind the UPA.
The BJP’s own presence in the new Lok Sabha will shrink considerably, though it fared well in Karnataka. The party had no choice but quickly concede defeat.

The voters also delivered a crushing blow to the Left parties as they lost two-thirds of the 61 seats they held in the outgoing Lok Sabha. The story of this election is that the Left suffered its first defeat in 32 years in its stronghold state of West Bengal at Trinamool Congress’s firebrand leader Mamata Banerjee. A deeply depleted Left will not have any role, far less an overbearing one, in the new government.

A beaming Congress president Sonia Gandhi—whose leadership is seen as a catalyst to the UPA victory— announced that Manmohan Singh would take oath as the Prime Minister for a second term.

Advani concedes defeat

In contrast, a distraught L K Advani conceded defeat and offered to step down as the party’s parliamentary leader, though the party has turned down his offer for the time being.

The UPA victory ensured that it need not depend on the support of the hard-bargaining potential allies like Mulayam Singh, Mayawati, AIADMK leader J Jayalalitha, Lalu Prasad and others.

The Congress’s big win was not confined to the Lok Sabha. Upsetting all calculations in Andhra Pradesh, the party led by chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy also retained power on its own in the state Assembly elections.

However, in the Orissa Assembly elections, BJD leader and chief minister Naveen Patnaik braved the Congress challenge and recorded a hat-trick of wins, even after dumping ally BJP.

Besides big wins in West Bengal, UP and AP, the Congress also stunned the BJP and NDA partners in Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Maharashtra and Haryana. The Third Front had to satisfy itself with a mere 76 seats, including 28 of Left parties, the Fourth Front managed to reach 27, SP getting 23 and Lalu’s RJD a mere four seats.

Prominent leaders who won included Sonia and Rahul, ministers Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram, Kamal Nath, Jyotiraditya Scindia (all of Congress), BJP’s L K Advani, party president Rajnath Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh, Sushma Swaraj and Varun Gandhi.

Other leaders who won included Sharad Pawar (NCP), Mulayam Singh Yadav (SP), Lalu Prasad (RJD), Kalyan Singh, Sharad Yadav (JD-U) and Mamata Bannerjee (Trinamool Congress). Prominent losers are: Ram Vilas Paswan (LJP), Mani Shankar Aiyar and S  Bangarappa (both Congress).

On the NDA side, Bihar chief minister and Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar has registered a remarkable score with his party bagging 21 out of 40 seats at stake.