Monday, April 18, 2011

Rahul Gandhi is hero of Congress Party after its convincing Indian election victory

Rahul Gandhi is hero of Congress Party after its convincing Indian election victory

Rahul Gandhi has led India's ruling Congress party to a clear victory in the biggest democratic election in history, defeating the rival Bharatiya Janata Party with ease.

Rahul Gandhi is hero of Congress Party after its convincing Indian election victory
Image 1 of 2
Congress Party supporters celebrate their election victory, for which they heaped praise on Rahul Gandhi Photo: AP

Rahul Gandhi is hero of Congress Party after its convincing Indian election victory...(can he and his young brigade repeat this performance once again in midst of anti-corruption wave and anger all over,it depends how he let people know what his people are doing for it and has a future plans!!....these people about whom i have read in an article that-they have tried to democraticising congress by starting inner voting from grassroot level till the top....and doing selections of newcomer by taking tests and interviews....vibha)


As polling officials began announcing the results of an election in which 428 million people cast their votes, jubilant Congress supporters celebrated their party's sweeping win by dancing in the streets and hailing Mr Gandhi as their "new leader".

Emerging from her residence, his mother Sonia Gandhi, the party's leader, thanked the people of India for "reposing their faith in the Congress Party". At her side, Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, thanked voters and said he hoped Mr Gandhi, 38, the party's rising star, would agree to become a member of his government.

"It is my wish that he should be in the cabinet but I may have to persuade him to do so," he said with a glimmer of a smile.

The victory is expected to hand Congress and its closest allies 258 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian parliament. With the figure only just short of an overall majority, it was the party's best result since 1991.

Its triumph was confirmed when the opposition Hindu nationalist BJP and the rival Communist-controlled Third Front both conceded they had not only lost but had been taken aback by the scale of their defeat. With 80 per cent of the vote counted, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was leading in just 162 of the country's 543 seats.

Mr Gandhi, 38, has been carefully groomed for his party's leadership with the expectation that he will eventually follow in the footsteps of his father Rajiv, his grandmother Indira Gandhi and his great-grandfather Jawarharlal Nehru as prime minister.

But despite intense pressure from her party, Sonia Gandhi has steadfastly refused to be hurried over her son's political career. Close family friends and supporters believe he needs cabinet experience before he is ready to step up to India's most powerful office.

Mr Gandhi, who led the Congress campaign, focussed on young voters and took a high-risk decision to reject seat-sharing deals with allies in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, where he wanted to use the campaign to rebuild the party's support base.

His gamble paid off with spectacular results. In Uttar Pradesh, where Congress had been wiped off the map in recent elections by caste-based parties, it looked set to win in 22 seats, almost double its previous tally. In West Bengal, where the Communists have held power for three decades, Congress and its allies were on course to win 23 seats, with the Communists slumping from 29 to just 13. In Kerala, Congress and its allies routed the Communists to win 16 of the state's 20 seats. The Communists won just four.

The result means Congress will not be beholden to small regional and caste-based parties which industrialists and national party leaders had feared. Both the main party leaders had voiced their concerns that these small parties could make demands which were not in India's national interest.

Conceding defeat, the Hindu nationalist BJP admitted that the results were "far below" expectations.

"We accept the people's verdict," said Arun Jaitley, a senior BJP official. "Certainly something did go wrong."

One key factor appears to have been the age of the party's leadership, including its prime ministerial candidate L.K Advani who is 82.

The only glimmer of hope for his party was in Uttar Pradesh where Varun Gandhi, another grandson of Indira Gandhi who is widely regarded as the black sheep of the family, won his own seat with a thumping majority of 260,000 votes. Support for the Hindu-nationalist BJP surged in the state after he was jailed for allegedly making an anti-Muslim speech. Last night it was set to win 12 seats in the state, two more than its 2004 tally.

But the main celebrations fell to the Congress Party, credited with enabling India's years of steady growth before the current world economic crisis and seen as more capable of steady governance than its main rival.

In Delhi, supporters celebrated in traditional Indian style outside the party's headquarters, distributing bouquets as brass bands played. Loudspeakers blared "Long Live Rahul!", "Long Live Sonia!" and the slogan "Jai Ho!" (Victory!), which Congress had appropriated from the film Slumdog Millionaire for its campaign.

Policemen on duty in their khaki uniforms outside the headquarters sweated profusely in temperatures of 41 degrees Celsius, but nothing could dampen the festive mood.

Party workers had been waiting since 4am for the election result. At first, a wave of disbelief swept through them as it emerged that the Congress had performed not just better than expected, but better than at any time for almost 20 years.

"We thought we would emerge as the largest party, but not this level of victory," admitted party member Parag Jain as he stood outside, trying to catch a glimpse of beaming Congress leaders as their cars rolled into party headquarters.

Portly Sikhs from Punjab said they planned to dance all day and all night, helped by a few bottles of rum. Shrikant Kohli, a semi-toothless auto-rickshaw driver in Delhi, recited doggerel in praise of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi to anyone who cared to listen.

"A new leader has been born [Rahul] and under his wisdom, India will shine like a star while his mother, like a great tree, gives us shade, fruit and protection," he declaimed loudly, to the amusement of party workers.

Mrs Siddiqui, who is not a party worker but who voted for the party, had come to share the jubilation. Standing alone amid the noise and music, she explained why she had voted for the party.

"Muslims were angry with the Congress over the demolition of the mosque at Ayodhya, but we have now realised that it is the only party that will help Muslims and the poor," she said.

No comments: