INDIA: Voting in India's staggered mammoth election ended yesterday with exit polls indicating a hung parliament. The counting of votes for the 545-seat parliament by downloading data from more than one million electronic voting machines begins early on Thursday. The results are expected a few hours later, Rahul Bedi in New Delhi reports
Most television exit polls from four previous rounds of voting had Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition short of the 272 seats necessary to form a new administration.
This trend was confirmed by exit polls from yesterday's fifth round of voting, for 182 seats.
The possibility of an uncertain electoral verdict led to the BJP and the main opposition Congress Party holding individual strategy sessions on ways to form a government by cobbling together alliances through allurements, deal-making and promises of high office to MPs from smaller, regional parties.
Mr Vajpayee called the election ahead of the October deadline, confident of improving his party's standing, or even securing a majority with fewer than the 24 parties that make up the National Democratic Alliance.
But the BJP's "India shining" campaign motto failed to motivate millions of poor and illiterate rural voters. Most did not even know what "shining" meant.
Midway through the voting, a panicky BJP changed tactics by projecting itself as the only party capable of building a stable coalition in India's fractious and turbulent polity.
In a show of bravado, however, the BJP has dismissed all exit poll predictions as "speculation", and its senior members remain outwardly confident of securing a parliamentary majority.
In contrast with earlier predictions, exit polls show the Congress Party fared better than expected, even though its Italian-born leader, Ms Sonia Gandhi, trails Mr Vajpayee in the popularity stakes. The BJP made Ms Gandhi's foreign origins an electoral issue, but the strategy does not appear to have paid off.
Meanwhile, tens of millions of Indians braved the searing summer heat and temperatures that averaged 45 degrees in many parts, like the western Rajasthan desert region, to vote on electronic machines across 12 states and four federally administered territories.
Election officials advised voters to carry water and wet towels with them and to wear loose-fitting cotton clothing.
Interminably long queues snaked their way around voting booths across Delhi, which sends seven MPs to parliament.
"Even if it takes the entire day I will vote," said housewife Ms Shakuntla Devi said. "It's my only chance to try and change things even though I know no politician ever does any work after the elections."
According to the independent Election Commission, two people died in election-related violence yesterday in eastern Bengal state where the Communist Party is omnipotent.
An estimated 48 people have been killed in election violence since voting began on April 19th, significantly lower than the 100 fatalities in the 1999 elections.
Political analysts said a fractured verdict would have a negative effect on India's ongoing economic reforms, and would slow economic growth, estimated at around 8 per cent this year.