India's Congress-led alliance sweeps back into power

India's ruling Congress-led alliance swept to a commanding election victory Saturday, crushing its Hindu nationalist rivals and setting up a second term for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

With results still coming in from the Election Commission, projections gave the Congress grouping as many as 250 seats against 160 for the main opposition bloc headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

"It is a decisive vote for the Congress," said Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi, as wild celebrations broke out at the party headquarters in New Delhi.

Although the Congress alliance was still expected to fall short of the 272 seats required for a majority in the 543-seat parliament, its projected margin of victory was much greater than exit polls had predicted.

A shortfall of just 20 to 30 seats would allow it to pick and choose from India's myriad regional parties to make up the numbers needed for a viable government.

Congress was expected to pick up more than 190 seats in its own right -- the party's best showing since 1991.

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

"We accept this verdict of the people," said senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley, who suggested a period of soul searching ahead for his party which had been pilloried during campaigning as anti-Muslim and communally divisive.

"When you lose an election it gives rise to a debate within the party," Jaitley said.

Outside the Congress party headquarters, supporters banged drums and danced in the street, holding portraits of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Singh.

Political analyst Neerja Choudhury said India's 714-million electorate had voted for stability.

"I feel that people did not want anything divisive in these times of uncertainty. They felt that Manmohan Singh, being an economist, can handle the economy for instance," Choudhury said.

After five successive years of near-double digit growth that lent the country the international clout it has long sought, the Indian economy has been badly hit by the global downturn.

And there are major security concerns over growing instability in South Asia, particularly in arch-rival Pakistan, with whom relations plunged to a new low following last year's bloody militant attack on Mumbai.

Exit polls had predicted that only a handful of seats would separate the Congress and BJP alliances - a scenario that had prompted gloomy forecasts of a badly hung parliament that would throw up a weak, patchwork coalition.

The picture that emerged Saturday was of a far more stable government that would be less vulnerable to the whims of its coalition partners.

"Based on the trends, I think it's clear this government will last a full term," said political analyst Rasheed Kidwai.

Congress spokeswoman Ambika Soni said party leaders and their allies would meet later in the day to discuss how they would go about building the support they need to govern India's 1.1 billion people.

Before Saturday's result, conventional wisdom dictated that the Congress alliance would need the support of the communist parties who withdrew from the ruling coalition last year in protest over a nuclear deal with the United States.

But the Left was trounced in its stronghold states of West Bengal and Kerala, leaving its leaders to concede that it had lost any kingmaker status.

"We have suffered a major setback," admitted Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

"This is a victory for the Congress and its allies who will now clearly form the government," Karat said.

According to the constitution, a new government must be be in place by June 2.

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