India's Congress-Led Coalition Seen With Strong Early Lead

By Sruthi Gottipati

Late last month we highlighted to reappointment of Portuguese PM Pedro Passos Coelho, noting that, in the words of Communist leader Jerónimo de Sousa, the President’s move to ignore the left’s attempt to form a government in the wake of largely inconclusive elections may be a “manifest waste of time.”

The biggest story in India these days continues to be the May 2014 elections and what they could mean for India's economy which is growing at its slowest pace in a decade. Naturally analysts have been weighing in on the elections.

NEW DELHI: As Congress stalled the GST Bill in Rajya Sabha, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today hit out at Sonia and Rahul Gandhi saying they had taken the defeat in 2014 elections badly and were creating obstacles in the path of national growth. Congress whose policies continue to be a liability for the country stands isolated on the Bill that will lead to a national Goods and Service Tax replacing all indirect levies, boosting economic growth and cutting prices, he said. "GDP will be boosted. That is the economic consensus, if GST is introduced.

India’s opposition leader Narendra Modi and his party won national elections in a landslide Friday, preliminary results showed, driving the long-dominant Congress party out of power in the most commanding victory India has seen in more than a quarter century. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party captured a commanding lead for at least 272 seats in the lower house of Parliament, the majority needed to create a government without forming a coalition with smaller parties.

"Why had support for the Congress declined? The survey found that the minorities, once a loyal bank, were disenchanted with the party, as were large sections of the young and the less educated." Circa 1967 Lok Sabha Election Results — India After Gandhi, Ramachandra Guha On May 28, 400-odd senior volunteers of the National Students Union of India (NSUI), an affiliate of the Congress, assembled in an air-conditioned hall in central Delhi. It was the second and concluding day of a national convention, an annual affair that had turned erratic in recent times.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Indian elections results due Friday provide a chance to repair relations with the U.S. that were strained by the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York in December. But there's a big catch: Washington's uneasy relationship with the man expected to become India's next prime minister.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's ruling Congress party, which surveys suggest will be ousted from power in elections due by May, called on Wednesday for opinion polls to be banned during the campaign after a TV news report alleged survey data was routinely manipulated.The News Express channel said a "sting operation" using hidden cameras had exposed malpractices by a clutch of polling agencies that included fudging numbers at the behest of political parties, sometimes for money.