Controversial Hindu nationalist party leader Narendra Modi swept back to power by a wide margin in India's religiously divided Gujarat State yesterday after his rivals conceded.
Early vote counting following a two-phase election earlier this month showed Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead in 117 districts, giving it a clear majority in the 182-seat parliament, according to partial information on the Web site of India's Election Commission and television forecasts.
His rival Congress Party, which run the federal government, conceded after television reports forecast it take just over 60 seats, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
PHOTO: AFP
Television news channels showed BJP workers waving flags outside party offices, dancing and setting off firecrackers.
"We have been celebrating since the last day of polling," a BJP spokesman, Yamal Vyas, told the CNN-IBN channel, soon after vote counting got underway.
Thousands of electoral workers were at counting sites across the state, with the official results expected around midday.
"About 8,000 personnel will be involved in the process," state electoral officer A.H. Manek told the Press Trust.
"Every table will have a central government officer as an observer. After completion of each round of counting, the observers will randomly select two electronic voting machines and recheck the votes polled for the parties," Manek said.
The BJP was universally expected to win this month's polls but has beaten predictions that it would be unable to come close to its 2002 sweep, when it won 128 seats.
Those elections were held shortly after sectarian riots in the state, which saw 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, hacked or burnt to death.
The party this time was predicted to win between 90 to 103 seats, according to exit polls conducted after two rounds of voting on Dec. 11 and Dec. 16.
"Nobody seriously expected Modi to be defeated," Chandan Mitra, editor of the pro-BJP Pioneer newspaper, said on the CNN-IBN news channel. "But he virtually repeats his 2002 win. After a long time we are seeing a pro-incumbency win."
Congress leaders expressed disappointment over their numbers.
"In elections you are prepared for everything," said Congress leader Margaret Alva on CNN-IBN.
"We had expected to do much better than we see on the screens. The numbers, I find, are very disappointing," she said.
But Alva insisted Modi's win had no meaning beyond the state -- or for federal elections in 2009 -- pointing to his divisive image as a Hindu leader who has run in the past on an aggressively anti-Muslim platform.
This election campaign was overshadowed by fresh allegations that Modi, popular with Hindus, who form the majority in the state, encouraged the riots targeting Muslims in 2002.
The violence erupted after 59 Hindu pilgrims died in a train fire first blamed on a Muslim mob, but which an inquiry later concluded was accidental.
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