India completes epic election voting

India held the fifth and final phase of the world’s largest democratic election today, amid doubts over whether Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will be returned to power with a stable government.

The massive ballot – involving some 368 million voters – took three weeks to conduct and could also decide the fate of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, with opposition leader Sonia Gandhi looking for solid gains and her son Rahul entering politics for the first time.

Some voters lined up in pouring rain in the Himalayas while others fainted from scorching heat in India’s east, as 16 states held balloting today.

Election-related violence claimed four lives in West Bengal and Punjab states.

Although exit polls and voter surveys placed Vajpayee’s National Democratic Alliance far ahead of Gandhi’s opposition Congress party and its allies, most pollsters have predicted that the 11-party coalition will fall short of the 272-seat majority mark it needs in the lawmaking lower house of Parliament, the Lok Sabha.

If the NDA fails to win a majority, it will be forced into horse-trading with smaller parties or independents to form a governing coalition.

That raises the risk of an unstable government, which may not last the full five-year term or be able to implement its policies.

Vajpayee’s coalition, led by his Hindu-nationalist party, has been bolstered by a booming economy, moves toward peace with rival Pakistan and pledges to further modernise India.

Congress and its allies have campaigned for a more secular government and championed the rural poor, who they say have been left out of India’s new prosperity.

New polls will be held on May 31 in one constituency in Bihar state where violence and fraud was rampant, the Election Commission said.

Otherwise, final results were expected on Thursday, from electronic voting machine tallies that replaced paper ballots across India for the first time.

The voter turnout averaged more than 55%.