Preliminary exit polls released after the final phase of voting in India's month-long elections showed a narrow lead for the ruling Congress-led coalition over the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) alliance, but indicated that neither party would have a clear majority.
The first poll to be published, conducted for India TV by C-Voter polling agency, showed the left of centre Congress-led alliance winning 193-205 seats, with the opposition BJP-led alliance taking 181-193 of the 543 seats at stake.
A national projection by the Headlines Today news channel also gave Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Congress coalition a lead, but below its showing in the 2004 election.
Exit polls in India are notoriously unreliable, given the difficulty of assessing how 714 million people have voted. Such polls were particularly misleading in the run up to the 2004 elections, when they suggested that the Congress party, which subsequently claimed a victory, would remain in opposition.
Despite these caveats, politicians in Delhi were paying close attention to these tentative, early indications, and attempts to secure post-poll alliances took on a frenzied pace.
BJP and Congress leaders have long anticipated that they may secure insufficient seats to form a strong government. Backroom negotiations with regional parties have intensified this week as each main party tries to forge ties to the most powerful regional blocs. In order to form a government, an alliance would need at least 272 seats in parliament.
If the result is very close once the votes are counted and announced, around midday on Saturday, the two rival parties may still need several days to secure firm commitments of support from potential allies. The capacity of one side or the other to form a government may not be immediately clear. A new parliament must be in place by 2 June, according to the constitution.
If both the Congress-led alliance and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) are unable to scrabble together enough backing from other parties to govern, India could see a hung parliament led by a new bloc, the Third Front. It comprises regional parties and the communists, who withdrew support from the Congress-led government over the nuclear deal signed last year with the US.
Analysts warn that a government that is heavily dependent on the unstable support of diverse, fragmented, local groups will be unable to push through its policies and may be short-lived.
The process of negotiating alliances is fraught and conducted in great secrecy. The powerful regional parties are in demand from both the BJP and Congress but are anxious not to burn their bridges by making premature commitments to one side or the other.The clandestine nature of talks has caused politicians to behave in strange ways. The leader of the Janata Dal (Secular) party, HD Kumaraswamy, who is a key player in the southern state of Karnataka and a crucial figure in the Third Front, was yesterday recognised driving through the gates of the home of the Congress party leader, Sonia Gandhi, despite his attempts to hide by draping a handkerchief (or perhaps a towel) over his head.
When confronted by Third Front politicians, he insisted he had not been trying to hide but had merely been wiping sweat from his face, denied that he had been there to discuss possible alliances, and described the visit as nothing more than "a courtesy call".
courtsey...the guardian u.k
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