NEW DELHI, 14 May 2004 — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s gamble to call early elections backfired as Indians voted his right-wing coalition out of power.
Bowing to the people’s verdict, Vajpayee handed in his resignation to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam yesterday evening. The president asked him to remain prime minister until a new government is sworn in.
The opposition Congress party and its allies bagged 219 of the 539 parliamentary seats declared by the Election Commission by late last night to emerge as the country’s largest political bloc.
Congress’ total was, however, still short of the 272 seats required to form a government. But that did not seem to present a problem to the 119-year-old party as the 60-odd bloc of leftist parties have pledged it their support.
Jubilant at her party’s unexpectedly good showing, a beaming Congress leader Sonia Gandhi called a brief press conference and thanked the voters for the confidence they had placed in the party.
She pledged a “strong, stable and secular government” but was non-committal on whether she would seek to be prime minister.
The Italian-born Sonia also promised to continue the peace process with Pakistan.
“Over the next few days the process of government formation will gather momentum,” she told reporters at the party headquarters here. Sonia said she was open to working with all “like-minded parties” in forming a stable government, but did not elaborate.
Asked whether she would be the prime minister, she said: “The leader of the Congress party will be elected by the elected members of the Congress party (in Parliament) which will be held on the 15th” of May.
Asked if the person elected Saturday would become prime minister, she said: “Normally this is what happens.”
On continuing the dialogue with Pakistan, she said: “From the very beginning we have been supporting Prime Minister Vajpayee’s initiative on Pakistan. In fact we have been the one who has been saying all along that the dialogue must continue. We’re glad that they followed what we told them to.”
The BJP, which has led coalitions since 1998 as the first avowedly Hindu party to rule secular India, called the election five months ahead of schedule to capitalize on Vajpayee’s popularity and booming economic growth.
But Congress turned the BJP’s “India Shining” re-election slogan on its head, portraying the BJP’s slick campaign which included mobile telephone messages to voters, as out of touch with millions of rural poor who lack proper electricity and water.
“The economic policies of BJP, which did achieve many things they had set out to achieve, alienated much of the electorate which are much too poor and marginalized to benefit from them,” said political analyst Pran Chopra.
The Bombay Stock Exchange rose 0.77 percent on hopes of a stable government, recovering from a sharp fall in early trade on fears of a hung Parliament.
Investors had favored the market-friendly BJP. Congress has pledged to continue Vajpayee’s privatization drive, although it will rely on support from leftists who demand the economy has a “human face”.
Belying exit polls that gave the ruling National Democratic Alliance 248-plus seats in Parliament, the combine could muster only 188.
Stunned by the BJP’s dismal performance, party’s chief strategist Pramod Mahajan accepted responsibility and said, “I do not want to target any individual for the defeat. I am myself taking the blame as I was in charge of my party’s election campaign.”
The highlight of the verdict includes Congress winning six out of seven seats in Delhi. In 1999 elections BJP had won all the seven seats. As the ruling Left Front swept the election in West Bengal, Mamata Bannerjee’s Trinamool Congress was virtually wiped out. Bannerjee, however, won her seat. The AIADMK — BJP’s ally in Tamil Nadu — failed to open its account.
Many NDA heavyweights fell by the wayside. They included Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, Railway Minister Nitish Kumar, Food Minister Sharad Yadav, Textiles Minister Shahnawaz Hussain, Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, Petroleum Minister Ram Naik and Tourism Minister Jagmohan.
