INDIA’S CONGRESS Party was in consultations yesterday to finalise a coalition government following its surprising but decisive victory in the month-long national election.
Congress officials met with leaders of smaller parties to cobble together a grouping that would secure its majority in parliament and ensure its continuance in office for the next five years.
Outgoing prime minister Manmohan Singh (77) is expected to call on President Pratibha Patil tomorrow to stake his claim to form the next government before June 2nd. Mr Singh, hailed by millions of Indians as “Singh the King”, is the first Congress Party prime minister other than one from the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to be re-elected.
His Congress-led United Progressive Alliance won 260 seats in India’s 543-seat parliament and needs just 12 more MPs to form the new administration.
The Congress Party – which on its own took 206 seats – soundly defeated the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and a host of ambitious smaller groupings.
Congress functionaries said they preferred to ally with small parties and independent MPs, as that would preclude them from giving too many concessions or cabinet posts to a larger party, a policy that would derail them from pursuing robust economic reforms and a consistent security and foreign policy at a time of great turmoil in India’s neighbourhood.
The scale of the victory has surprised virtually everyone in India and analysts said the topsy-turvy financial markets will breathe easy now that the country will not be assailed by an extended period of uncertainty as coalitions were hammered out.
The firm mandate to the Congress Party would not only ensure greater fiscal reform but also amendment of archaic labour laws and much-needed infrastructural development.
The imminent Congress-led administration would be free to pursue its proliferating strategic, military and nuclear ties with Washington and Tel Aviv that has emerged as India’s largest supplier of defence hardware after Russia.
Analysts said the mandate revealed a rejection of large and unwieldy coalitions that followed the last three general elections, religious, sectarian and casteist politics as practiced by the BJP and the widespread desire for continuity and governance in the new administration.
But significantly, the electoral outcome signalled the coming of political age of Rahul Gandhi, the heir to the ruling Congress Party leadership and projected by it as the country’s future prime minister.
Rahul’s father Rajiv Gandhi followed his mother Indira as India’s prime minister in 1985 who, in turn succeeded her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, in the same job.
This scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is credited with his party’s impressive performance in several provinces, and the gamble for the Congress to not seek pre-election alliances in crucial states which ended up paying rich electoral dividend.
Political observers and Congress Party insiders believe that over the next few years Rahul Gandhi could easily become prime minister after “suitable” grooming as a senior cabinet minister in the forthcoming administration.
In his victory speech Mr Singh praised Mr Gandhi and said he “deserved” a cabinet post.