NEW DELHI, 25 February — India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party was routed yesterday in state assembly polls, losing out to regional parties in the key state of Uttar Pradesh and ceding power to the main opposition Congress party in two others. (See also page 9)
BJP’s Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Rajnath Singh quit his post as returns pointed to a hung result with the local Samajwadi Party emerging as the single largest party in what is India’s most populous and politically most important state.
The Congress grabbed an absolute majority of 62 seats out of a total of 117 seats in Punjab Assembly, which is home to most of India’s Sikh population.
In the hill state of Uttaranchal, the Congress won 36 seats, enough for an absolute majority in the 70-member state legislature, state television said. The BJP, which ruled Uttaranchal, carved out of Uttar Pradesh two years ago, took 18 seats.
In declared results for 266 of the seats in the 403-member assembly, the Samajwadi Party secured 100, against 61 for the caste-based BSP party and 57 for the BJP.
The 115-year-old Congress party, headed by Sonia Gandhi, made a triumphant return to power after five years in the northern state of Punjab and wrested the administration from the BJP in the newly-created state of Uttaranchal.
The post-poll scenario shows Congress holding power in more than a dozen states, while the dominance of BJP has been squeezed to less than five.
The Congress was also the clear leader in the remote northeastern state of Manipur. “It is a clear verdict against the BJP. We were not expecting more than this,” Sonia said. The results were worse than expected for Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s party.
“The situation in parliament is no different... and no party seems to be in a position to form an alternative coalition to Vajpayee’s government,” said political analyst Kiran Saxena.
