New Delhi - India's Hindu nationalist-led alliance clinched the majority needed to rule yesterday as the election vote-count drew to a close, but doubts were already being cast over the durability of the government it would form.
The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), looked likely to become the first prime minister to be voted back into office since Indira Gandhi in 1971.
But his government - India's sixth since 1996 - will have a slender majority in parliament. Ms Sonia Gandhi's Congress party faces its third successive electoral defeat.)