Communists sweep elections in Indian states [View All]

LOOKS LIKE THE WORLD IS MOVING LEFT!


The red flag swamped two out of five Indian states yesterday as the Marxists swept to victory in the assembly elections, putting to shade the Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi's own record margin in a parliamentary by-election.

The Communists' seventh successive poll success in the eastern state of West Bengal and the Congress rout in Kerala is set to change power equations at the centre where Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government, supported by the Left, has been bitterly attacked by their ally over its economic reforms and ties with the United States.

Communists hosted feasts in front of huge TV screens, waving red flags with their faces painted red as the sheer scale of the victory sunk in...

The Congress, facing its biggest electoral test since coming to power two years ago, struggled to retain its majority in the northeastern state of Assam where neither it with 45 seats, nor the opposition Asom Gana Parishad with 24 seats, were comfortably home. Together, other parties and independents have a tally of 48 in the 125-seat Assembly.

The Congress must forge a coalition in the former French enclave of Pondi-cherry where it had a majority. It's only in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, that the Congress can find comfort as a junior partner in a coalition government headed by its ally, the regional Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party which unseated film-star-turned chief minister Jayalalitha Jayaram. But even in that state, the Left is part of the winning combination led by Muthuvel Karunanidhi's DMK...

Manmohan Singh, in an apparent bid to humour his Communist allies, said the poll results were a "victory for secular forces." Other Congress officials put up a brave face. "I think we are as much victors as the Left is," Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said. "So why assume that the Left will be unreasonable in victory?"... http://gulfnews.com/world/India/10039454.html