India's Congress party has swept the polls in three key states, raising questions about the future of the Hindu nationalist-led coalition government.
The result raises the possibility of general elections some time next year, amid continuing political uncertainty and turbulence.
The Congress party, which has ruled India for nearly 45 years after independence 51 years ago, won enough seats to form governments in Madhya Pradesh state in central India, the western desert province of Rajasthan and the federal capital of New Delhi. However, it lost to a regional party backed by the church in the small north-eastern state of Mizoram which has a Christian majority and is not considered crucial to national politics.
The Congress party and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, headed governments in two states. The results were announced at the weekend. But Congress party leaders yesterday said they were in no hurry to oust the BJP-led coalition which they said would topple under its own "weight and contradictions". Party president, Ms Sonia Gandhi (51), said her party would tread carefully over the next few months and not make any move to topple the federal government.
Analysts said voters in all four states had registered a negative vote against the BJP just eight months after it came to power at the head of a 15-party coalition because of soaring prices, power shortages and the deteriorating law and order situation.
Stunned BJP leaders said the people had voted against the state governments but not the federal coalition. At a party meeting yesterday the BJP said it would turn the "challenge posed by the elections results into an opportunity".
The BJP-led coalition also faces a stormy session of parliament beginning today with senior party leaders wary about their various coalition partners who have hinted at the possibility of aligning with the Congress to form an alternative administration.
Meanwhile, senior Congress leaders were quick to acknowledge Ms Gandhi's role in the electoral victory holding her "singularly" responsible for restoring the flagging credibility of the party riven with internecine rivalry and defections earlier in the year.