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News Analysis

Rival coalitions upbeat as voting ends in India

ANN, New Delhi
The curtains closed on India s month-long national election yesterday - widely regarded as too close to call - with voters having chosen the last 86 members of India's 543-seat Lower House of Parliament.
Formal campaigning ended at 5pm on Monday in the five-stage poll, which has seen a record 8,070 candidates in the fray, as opposed to 5,435 contestants in the2004 polls.
Of the nearly 714 million people eligible to cast ballots, 100 million are first-time
voters.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the Congress Party and the leader of the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Lal Krishna Advani - leaders of rival coalitions - are both are scrambling for allies since no single party is expected to win the minimum 272 seats needed to form a national government on its own.
"We will form the next government, IJiave.no doubt about it," Dr Singh said in a speech. "Politics is the art of the possible. Anyone can be mollified."
Nine states, including parts of Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, were involved in the final round. But southern Tamil Nadu, which sends 39 MPs to New Delhi, is the key battleground state today -where Dr Singh's Congress and its regional ally DMK are fighting with their backs to the wall against resurgent opposi-tion leader Jayalalithaa Jayaram.
The former film actress, who heads the regional A1ADMK party, has drawn huge crowds throughout the state. The 85-year-old DMK Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi has been in poor health.
The showing in the state could well have an impact on the final outcome of the polls, when results are announced on Saturday.
The Congress-DMK alli-
ance swept the state in 2004, making DMK one of the most powerful coalition allies of the Singh government at the centre and bagging several key Cabinet posts. This time, pundits say, the alliance would be lucky to win 20 seats.
There is speculation that if Jayalalithaa turns in a specially strong performance, Congress may ditch its current ally to team up with her.
With Congress .support shoring up DMK's control over the state assembly as well, any such realignment may lead to fresh state assemblypolls in Tamil Nadu - which are otherwise not due until 2011.
Most analysts agree that India's 15th general election is by far the most tightly regulated.
Besides being required to keep a daily account of expenses, candidates needed written permission for every poster pasted on a household wall and had to comply with strictly enforced campaigning hours.
"The Election Commission is one of the few institutions that gained credibility, power and stature over the past two decades," says political scientist Yogendra Yadav, an expert on elections.
The commission also banned exit polls during the five-stage voting process, which makes it tough to know which way the wind is blowing.