12 May 2004	Wednesday	21 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

NEW DELHI: After India's mammoth election exercise ended on Monday, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies had little of the confidence that prompted the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to call parliamentary elections six months before completing its five-year term in office.

If anything, exit and opinion polls and analyses indicate that the opposition Congress party stands an even chance of cobbling together an alliance that would enable it to hold the reins of national power for the first time since 1996.

The BJP started out by turning the election into one based on personalities in the belief that the personality and stature of its leader, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, would prevail over that of Sonia Gandhi, the reclusive, Italian-born leader of the Congress party and heir to the political legacy of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

Much was made of Ms Gandhi's foreign origins in the elections, the first phase of which began on April 20. The BJP said it planned to bring in legislation that would bar people who were not racially Indian from holding high office.

But as campaigning progressed, the Congress party made the tactical move of bringing into the fray Ms Gandhi's son Rahul, who represents the next generation of the Nehru-Gandhi clan, and thus blunted the BJP thrust against people of foreign origin.

At the end on Monday evening of the fourth phase of polling, which involved an estimated 58 per cent turnout among more than 210 million eligible voters, Congress party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi announced that Sonia Gandhi would stake claim to be prime minister only if the Congress party emerged with a majority of its own.

Since no single party can achieve a majority on its own in India's gargantuan 543-seat parliament, Singhvi's statement was seen as a signal that it was now ready to sit together with its regional allies to thrash out a workable "secular" arrangement that would keep the BJP and its allies in the NDA out of power.

Counting begins on May 13 and results are expected later that day, but both the BJP and the Congress party have already begun scrambling to gain support from powerful regional parties.

These include the Samajwadi Party (SP) in northern Uttar Pradesh state, the National Congress Party (NCP) in western Maharashtra, the Left Front in West Bengal and the pro-Dravidian parties in southern Tamil Nadu.

For all its setbacks as perceived by exit polls, the BJP is still slated to emerge as the biggest single political party and its leader Mr Vajpayee is bound to given the first chance to form a government and prove that it has majority support in parliament.

Mr Vajpayee, who during his campaign stressed the BJP's ability to lead coalitions, will have to contend with a much-chastened Congress party that is now ready to shed its monolithic image and deal with regional partners. But that was only after his colleagues expressed alarm at a public confession made by the 79-year-old prime minister that he was tired of leading coalitions.

One of India's leading political analysts, Neerja Chowdhury, has in television interviews predicted four possible scenarios in the post-poll phase - starting with a repeat of the Vajpayee-led NDA.

The trouble with this is that several of the NDA's main constituents are reported to have done badly in the elections, but most especially the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) of Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

In adjacent Tamil Nadu state, the party of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is said to be trailing behind another local party - whose leader, veteran politician M Karunanidhi, announced on Monday that his party would not return to the NDA.

Another constituent of the NDA that has fallen out with the Mr Vajpayee is the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which champions the cause of the "Dalits" or people on the lowermost rungs of the Hindu caste ladder.

The party's fiery leader, Mayawati (one name) has sworn vengeance for her ouster as chief minister of northern Uttar Pradesh state and corruption cases initiated against her by the BJP leadership.

Chowdhury's other post-poll scenarios include a Congress- driven government with a prime minister decided upon by consensus or even a 'Third Front' government supported from the outside by the Congress party.

Finally, she talks about a "Fourth Front", supported rather than led, by the BJP. Such a front could be made up of its more popular allies like the Samta Dal (Equality Party) in eastern Bihar state led by George Fernandes, currently defence minister in the NDA coalition government.

According to Chowdhury a Fourth Front government could once again be led by Vajpayee given his acceptability among the allies as the "moderate face" of the openly pro-Hindu BJP.

Several of the constituents of the NDA are believed to have suffered a loss in popularity as a result of aligning with the right-wing BJP, which is seen as business-friendly and unwilling to rein in some of its openly communal leaders as Narendra Modi, chief minister of western Gujarat state.

Modi and his government were indicted recently by the Supreme Court for behaving like "modern-day Neros" during the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat two years ago that resulted in more than 2,000 deaths.

On Monday, the political uncertainty looming ahead in India had its effects on the financial markets, which saw a two per cent drop in the prices of shares and bonds.

The Vajpayee government has been popular with the affluent middle classes and urbanites, people who increasingly use the Internet to buy and sell shares and have readily subscribed to the BJP's controversial election slogan of an "India Shining".

But there remains widespread dissatisfaction in rural areas, where the majority of India's billion plus population lives. From there come reports of starvation deaths and suicides by farmers whose livelihoods have been ruined by crashing farm prices or crop failures. -Dawn/The Inter Press News Service.