India Concludes Massive Vote;
Hung Parliament Looks Likely

AP 11may04

NEW DELHI—Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's coalition courted new political allies Tuesday after exit polls suggested it lost ground to Sonia Gandhi's opposition Congress party in India's massive, three-week-long parliamentary elections.

Results were expected Thursday and could revive the political momentum of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, with Congress projected to make solid gains.

The exit polls, which have been wrong in recent state elections, show Mr. Vajpayee's coalition failing to win enough seats to control Parliament and form a stable government. That could mean fierce bargaining to enlist support of smaller parties and independent lawmakers.

"Talks, claims, negotiations going on," said the Hindustan Times in a front-page headline Tuesday. "BJP leaders privately admitted they were now looking for new allies to muster the numbers they needed."

Business interests tend to favor Mr. Vajpayee's coalition, seeing it as more disposed to liberalizing India's markets.

Exit polls showing Congress gains pushed the Bombay Stock Exchange's main Sensitive Index down 138 points, a drop of 2.5%, when it opened Tuesday. The rupee hit a three-and-a-half-month low against the U.S. dollar.

Mr. Vajpayee's coalition, led by his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, went into the elections bolstered by a booming economy, moves toward peace with rival Pakistan and pledges to further modernize India.

Congress and its allies campaigned for a more secular government and championed the rural poor, who they say have been left out of India's new prosperity.

Final results will be tallied Thursday from electronic voting machines that replaced paper ballots across India for the first time.

This year's elections also saw the first entrance into politics by Sonia Gandhi's son, Rajul. Although Congress is now in opposition, it monopolized Indian politics for most of the first four decades after independence from Britain, with the Nehru-Gandhi clan at the helm.

The Congress party produced India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. His daughter, Indira Gandhi, and grandson, Rajiv, also were prime ministers and both were assassinated. The Italian-born Sonia Gandhi is Rajiv's widow.

About 360-400 million voters participated in five phases of voting that began April 20. Forty-eight people died in election violence, less than half the deaths that occurred in the last elections in 1999.

A leading exit poll, conducted by AC Nielsen for New Delhi Television-Indian Express, indicated a hung Parliament was likely. It was backed by two other exit polls, by Aaj Tak and Zee television. All three gave Mr. Vajpayee's 11-member National Democratic Alliance 250 or fewer seats in Parliament.

That would put the NDA far short of the 272 seats needed for a majority of the 543 elected seats in the lower house, called the Lok Sabha, and even further short of its 1999 showing of 305 seats, when the alliance consisted of 22 parties.

The Congress party and its allies were projected to win 190 to 205 seats—a big increase from the 112 they won after the 1999 polls, its worst election defeat.

The country's leftist parties, which have vowed to support Congress, appear ready to gain 40 to 50 seats. Another 60 to 70 seats stand to go to smaller parties or independents, according to the poll.

Ms. Gandhi and Mr. Vajpayee looked likely to be neck-and-neck, forced into horse-trading for support to form a governing coalition. This could raise the risk of an unstable government, which may not last the full five-year term or be able to implement its policies.

"This is when the smaller parties will emerge as the kingmakers," said Rajdeep Sardesai, a political analyst on New Delhi Television.

Mr. Vajpayee—who held a 22-party alliance together for five years—has shown more ability to form a coalition than Ms. Gandhi, who missed a chance to unseat him in 1999 when she insisted that if her alliance won, she would be prime minister. Several parties who objected to a naturalized Indian citizen running the country abandoned her.

Ms. Gandhi was born in Italy, moved to New Delhi in 1968 and later became an Indian citizen.

This time, Congress spokesmen say that if Congress needs other parties to form the government, a decision on the prime minister will be decided among them.