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| Moditva works fourth time | | BJP wins Gujarat, Congress accepts defeat | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Dec 23
Despite a strong national campaign of communalism against him, the Hindutva poster-boy Narendra Modi today powered BJP to a near two-thirds majority in the Gujarat Assembly elections and for a record fourth term giving himself a third stint as Chief Minister. He proved all the poll pundits wrong.
In the elections that were seen as a referendum on Modi, the ruling BJP trounced main rival Congress securing 117 seats, five less than a two-thirds majority in the 182-member Assembly and ten less than it had notched in the 2002 elections.
The Congress marginally improved its position bagging 59 seats, increasing its tally by eight while its ally NCP won three. The party's defeat triggered a debate whether its president Sonia Gandhi's controversial "merchants of death" remarks was a factor that contributed to saffron consolidation.
Modi, who had replaced Keshubhai Patel in 2001 and had led the party to a sweeping victory in 2002, will be sworn in as Chief Minister on December 27.
The 57-year-old former RSS pracharak's performance bettered Exit Poll projections by TV channels, the highest of which was 110, and enthused the party's Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani to claim that the BJP was on a "comeback trail" at the Centre.
The JD(U) won one seat while the Independents accounted for the remaining two. The BSP, with ambitions of expanding its presence outside Uttar Pradesh, the CPI-M and the Lok Jan Shakti of Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan drew a blank.
Factors like incumbency and challenge from party rebels could not stop the Modi juggernaut which swept Saurashtra, North and South Gujarat holding on to BJP's existing seats.
The saffron party suffered reverses in Central Gujarat, the theatre of post-Godhra riots in 2002, where it lost about a score of seats to Congress which was made up by wins elsewhere. |
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