The people of India have given their verdict and have voted out the NDA and its “India Shining” campaign. It is a clear verdict against the NDA, a fact which was admitted by former Parliamentary Affairs minister Ms. Sushma Swaraj. As trends for almost all of the 543 constituencies are out, the NDA will not even cross the 200 seats mark a drop of almost 80 from last time. The Congress and its allies will manage to get around 215 seats, an improvement of around 60 from last time. The Left will get around 50 seats. Sonia Gandhi is going to stake claim to form the next government at 4.00 pm IST.

What all this means is that the next government, which will be lead by the Indian National Congress (INC) will in all likelihood be a stable one that will be able to complete its full term of five years. Moreover with Congress being the largest party in the coalition, it seems most of the obstacles in the way of Sonia Gandhi becoming the next Prime Minister of India are quickly melting away. Because of the resurgence of the Left, even Sharad Pawar (with his stand on the foreign origin issue) and his NCP party no longer have the bargaining power that he would have been hoping to get.

A stable government is certainly a good thing for India, even more so now with its emerging power status. I would be surprised if there are many policy changes as regards India’s current status in the IT industry. There might be some concerns of slowdown on the issue of disinvestment, with the left playing such a major role. Also it will be interesting to see what the INC’s stand will be on relations with Pakistan. Sonia Gandhi had accused the NDA of being inconsistent. So one has to see what consistent route, her government will take. Also on Economy, one can only be hopeful as it was during Dr. Manmohan Singh’s reign as Finance Minister that the liberalisation of the Indian economy began. Dr. Singh will most probably be the next Finance Minister (unless of course, by some twist of fate, he becomes the PM.)

So we certainly have interesting times ahead. I, for one, am looking forward to the future.