Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee handed his resignation to the president today after a shock loss to the opposition Congress party in a national election.
Mr Vajpayee conceded defeat and resigned this afternoon after the opposition Congress party defied predictions and its allies swept the polls in the world's largest democracy.
|
| Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, President of India's main opposition Congress Party, greets the press as she arrives to cast her vote in New Delhi on May 10th. REUTERS/Kamal Kishore |
President Abdul Kalam asked Mr Vajpayee to remain as caretaker until a new government could be formed.
His defeat leaves the way clear for the Gandhi dynasty to sweep back into power today on a stunning wave of anger among millions of rural poor who felt left behind by the country's economic boom.
Congress, led by Ms Sonia Gandhi and her children, Rahul and Priyanka, the new faces of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, could take power by next week.
"[A] secular coalition led by Congress should take the oath in the next few days," party spokeswoman Ms Ambika Soni said.
However, a Congress coalition is likely to have to depend on the support of leftist parties, who registered their best performance yet.
Analysts said that the new government was likely to continue the reforms crucial for Asia's third-largest economy, but that they might have to be redesigned to ensure benefits percolated down to the poor and were not restricted to the urban upper classes.
Congress was written off before the poll which Mr Vajpayee called early to cash in on a surging economy, good monsoons and peace prospects with Pakistan. But strong campaigning by the Gandhis - who drew massive crowds, and resentment that the benefits of growth and economic reforms were not reaching ordinary Indians, revived the party.
The result is the culmination of a mammoth logistics effort across the world's second-most populous country, where more than 670 million people were eligible to vote.
Polling was held in five stages over three weeks to allow time to move one million officials and tens of thousands of police and troops around the almost 700,000 polling stations.
The "tamper-proof" voting machines were delivered to remote parts of the huge country by elephants, camels, boats and helicopters and were secured by armed guards after use.