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Party defies pundits to win state polls in India
By ASHOK SHARMA,Associated Press Writer AP - 2 hours 51 minutes ago
NEW DELHI - With Mumbai still smoldering and criticism against politicians flaring over the government's bumbling response to recent deadly attacks on the city, pundits were predicting a beating for India's ruling party in a series of state elections. They were wrong.
The Congress party, which heads the coalition that governs India nationally, won elections in three out of the five states that released results Monday _ including all three states that voted after the Mumbai attacks.
The victories give the party a political boost going into national elections expected early next year, but analysts say it does not make it immune to criticism over India's stumbling fight against terrorism.
"These were state elections," Pai Panadikar, a well-known independent political analyst, said Tuesday. "In local elections people are concerned with things like who has been trying to improve their plight."
"In national elections, that is when issues like terrorism and the state of the economy" become of prime importance, he said.
While the results appeared to revolve largely around local issues such as infrastructure and corruption, voters also seemed to take into consideration the main opposition party's attempt to politicize the Mumbai attacks.
The opposition Hindu-nationalist BJP ran advertisements in the days immediately after the attacks warning that the Congress party was weak on security issues.
"Weak government unwilling and incapable," read one front-page BJP newspaper advertisement with a blood splotch in the background. It urged voters to, "Fight terror. Vote BJP."
Those tactics, many observers think, were a mistake.
"That strategy may have backfired," the Times of India newspaper said in a Tuesday editorial. "Sure terrorism is a major concern, but people seem to have refused to read party politics into it. They recognize terrorism, especially the kind witnessed in Mumbai, as a war waged on the nation. During war people rally around the government to fight the threat from outside."
The Congress party won elections in New Delhi _ which is a state as well as a city _ the tiny northeastern state of Mizoram and in the western state of Rajasthan, where it wrested power from the BJP.
The BJP won in the central states of Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh.
The five state elections were held over the past month, though results were announced Monday.
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