NEW DELHI, 12 May 2006 — India’s ruling Congress party yesterday fared better than the media forecast in state elections, but its communist allies made big gains.
The communists returned to power in the eastern West Bengal state for a record seventh term. The Left Front, headed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) won 239 of the state’s 294 assembly seats. Congress could get only 29.
In the southern state of Kerala, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) was routed by the communists-led Left Democratic Front (LDF). The LDF won 99 to UDF’s 41. The Kerala Assembly has 140 lawmakers.
Communist party workers celebrated across West Bengal, Kerala and in the capital, New Delhi.
Communist party chief Prakash Karat said the left would use its mandate to push more “pro-people measures” in government policy but would not destabilize the coalition in New Delhi. “The election results have strengthened the role of the left in national politics,” the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said in a statement.
Sonia Gandhi, the leader of Congress, won a parliamentary by-election by a margin of 417,888 votes from the family borough of Rae Bareli in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. It was roughly twice her winning margin in 2004. She polled 474,891 votes against 57,003 of Samajwadi Party’s Raj Kumar Chowdhury. Sonia sought re-election after she quit Parliament in March. The opposition had accused her of violating the constitution by being an MP as well as head of the National Advisory Council.
Congress workers celebrated outside Sonia’s residence in New Delhi. The scene was no less riotous in Rae Bareli, where her children thanked people for supporting them.
In the far eastern Assam state, Congress defied pollsters to win 53 of the 126 assembly seats. The Hagrama Mohilary faction of the Bodo People’s Progressive Front (BPPF-H), an ally of Congress, won 11 seats. The two can now form the government on their own as their combined strength is 64.
Congress’ main challenger, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) won 24 seats, and its ally the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) won two seats. The CPI, another AGP ally, won one seat.
Congress is set to form government in Pondicherry too, where it has won 21 out of 30 seats.
In Tamil Nadu, the DMK returned to power, stunning Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalitha and vowing to form an exclusively DMK government despite failing to win a majority on its own. “He (M. Karunanidhi) will be the chief minister 100 percent. Where is the doubt?” Karunanidhi’s son M.K. Stalin told reporters in Madras.
The DMK and its allies, including Congress, the PMK, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and the Communist Party of India (CPI), have won 163 of the 226 seats for which results had been declared. Tamil Nadu has a 234-member house. The AIADMK could win just 69 seats, despite aligning at the eleventh hour with two former partners of the DMK — the MDMK and the Dalit Panthers of India.
— Additional input from agencies
