NEW DELHI: India’s main political parties went hunting for friends Thursday, armed with exit polls suggesting month-long elections had delivered another stalemate that only new allies could break, AFP reported.

As the world’s largest democracy breathed a collective sigh of relief that its marathon ballot had finally concluded without major incident, it quickly became clear that another huge task remained in building a viable government.

Half a dozen polls conducted by news channels all gave the ruling alliance led by the Congress party a slight edge over the main opposition bloc headed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The predicted margin was between five and 20 seats, but neither grouping had anywhere near the 272 seats required to command a parliamentary majority.

Exit polls have proved wildly inaccurate in previous Indian elections but, until the Election Commission announces the official result on Saturday, they will lend Congress a slight psychological advantage in its coalition-building battle with the BJP.

By tradition, the party that wins the most seats has the right to try to form a government first.

With both sides needing to find around 70 extra seats, the task is not only to find new allies among India’s myriad regional parties, but also to ensure that existing partners are not tempted away by promises of power.

‘Past commitments, positions or loyalties count for very little,’ said analyst Subhash Agarwal, of India Focus, a political risk publication.

Congress has been making overtures to its ex-communist allies and has also reportedly been in touch by telephone with the powerful chief minister of Bihar state, Nitish Kumar, who is supposed to be tied up with the BJP.

The cloak and dagger nature of some of the horse-trading was highlighted earlier this week when the head of the Janata Dal regional party, H D Kumaraswamy, drove to Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s home with his face covered.

Until now, Kumaraswamy has insisted his loyalties lie with the only viable alternative to the two main blocs — a so-called ‘Third Front’ of regional parties.

The BJP’s dealmakers have also been busy, picking up partners and sometimes jettisoning old ones in the process.

‘We lost one ally but got five,’ the party’s candidate for prime minister L.K. Advani proudly informed a recent rally of supporters.

The concern that principle may all too easily be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency has been a consistent theme of newspaper editorials and television debates.

‘It’s open season for building and breaking alliances,’ said the Mail Today on Thursday in a story headlined: ‘Anybody’s game now.’

Even by India’s standards of ‘ideological easy accommodation, there’s a certain Alice-in-Wonderland quality to these elections,’ said Agarwal. ‘Parties ‘are increasingly ambiguous regarding their position on major policy issues.’

If the two main alliances fail to break their deadlock, the path to power might open up for the Third Front, but such a coalition would suffer from the large number of disparate parties it would need to make up the numbers.

‘This is the outcome the investment community dreads — a Third Front victory and the negative consequences for business and political instability,’ said Deepak Lalwani, India director of brokerage Astaire and Partners. 

The wheeling and dealing is likely to last some time, with June two the constitutional deadline for the formation of the new government.

An editorial in Thursday’s Indian Express warned the political parties against taking the electorate for granted as they jockeyed for position.

‘India overall still expects great things from the political process,’ the Express said. ‘As the horse-trading begins, let’s remember that.’