(2 Mar 1998) English/Nat
Vote counting began on Monday for protracted Indian parliamentary elections with a right-wing Hindu nationalist party expected to lead the race but not gain a clear majority.
With opinion surveys showing a hung Parliament emerging from the second elections in less than two years, the major blocs began holding strategy sessions to work out
alliances.
The counting will take place over the next three days with the results being announced on Wednesday.
Tallying has begun across India - the world's largest democracy - as the country waits to see who may lead them into the next century.
It's a mammoth task involving some 14-hundred counting centres like this one in over eight-hundred towns across the country.
With tens of (m) millions of ballots to count - the task is a weighty one.
These elections were called three years early.
The last elected government - led by the Hindu-majority Bharatiya Janata Party or B-J-P - fell after just thirteen days.
Since then, the United Front joined forces with the Congress party - but constant in-fighting led to irreparable fractures within the coalition.
Now - with no clear victor in sight - the B-J-P are looking for allies - and the U-F and Congress Parties are looking for ways to mend fences.
In all, 543 seats are at stake; the two remaining are filled by appointment.
This election has had a double-sided interest.
Sonia Gandhi - widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi - led a very public campaign for the Congress Party - but did not opt to run herself.
Supporters are now anxiously waiting to see if her efforts were enough.
The B-J-P - both feared and revered for their pro-India, right-wing Hindu stance are confident they will be the largest party and will be able to win support from smaller parties to form a coalition.
Leaders of the B-J-P met over the weekend and announced that the party would begin talks with potential allies on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, leaders of parties opposed to the B-J-P met informally on Sunday to discuss the likelihood of cobbling together an alliance like the 14-party coalition that was ousted in December.
Analysts believe there is little chance the elections will produce a more stable government.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Well unless all of us are spectacularly wrong you are going to have a hung parliament with no party emerging with a clear majority. But at the moment there seems to be a very close race between what you call the right-wing Hindu B-J-P and the Congress, so the race is for that. But I think, at the end of the day, the B-J-P will probably emerge as the largest single combine, but it will be short of a majority. And there is a possibility now that you could have a Congress led government too. So there are two possibilities, one is of course a B-J-P led coalition and the other is a Congress led coalition."
SUPER CAPTION: Vinod Mehta, Editor of Outlook magazine
The headlines are already predicting a hung parliament.
More than 3-hundred (m) million of India's 6-hundred (m) million voters have cast ballots in the election, which was staggered to give security forces time to move across a country where religious, ethnic and caste difference often cause trouble.
Violence marred each of the four voting days since February 16. Eight people were killed on Saturday, bringing the death toll to at least 76.
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