A multitude of developmental and security challenges await the Congress-led new Government headed by Dr. Manmohan Singh, as it enters a second five-year term. The decisive verdict reflects largely confidence generated by rural employment and pro-farmer programmes, which needs to be fostered by greater focus on inclusive development for the future.

The immediate tasks for the new Government are economic, setting the pace for recovery from the sharp slowdown caused by global recession hitting both exports and capital inflows and domestic investments with severe job losses. Dr. Manmohan Singh had indicated that if returned to power, the UPA Government would within 100 days strengthen the stimulus packages and improve the investment climate for the revival of the economy, He has the grasp of the global crisis dimensions and of ways by which India could salvage itself and begin contributing to global growth along with China.

It is widely expected, as Dr. Manmohan Singh himself hinted, that Mr. Rahul Gandhi would be inducted into the new Cabinet which would be sworn in during the week beginning May 18. The Congress is expected to hold all the key portfolios with some shifts in personalities while sharing no less important departments dealing with agriculture, infrastructure and human resource and social development with major alliance partners. The new ally, the 19-member Trinamool Congress led by Ms. Mamata Banerjee, which vanquished the Left in West Bengal, would be coaxed to take its place in Government, along with the older major allies, DMK and NCP.

The new Finance minister - probably the veteran economic administrator Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia — will immediately begin to work on tax and expenditure policies for 2009-10, and the Budget is also expected to lay a road map for eventual return to fiscal sustainability with the current levels of central fiscal deficit hitting 6 per cent of GDP. The current year will still be a year of nursing recovery for a 6 to 7 per cent growth after the economy had gone through a plunge in industrial growth and exports to below 3 per cent in 2008-09.

The price situation needs a watch as while WPI inflation hovers below one per cent, food and primary article prices remain high and CPI was still at over 8 per cent in March. There is also a rebound in international oil prices to 60 dollars a barrel in mid-May, the highest level since November last.

For the grand old organisation, which led the freedom struggle and laid the foundations of modern India, the 2009 verdict marks a great turnaround inasmuch as its own strength has soared past the 200 mark, after nearly two decades, while the UPA it leads is close to the requisite majority of 272 in the 543-member House. This was helped by solid Congress gains in several states, the notable additions to the 2004 tally being in Rajasthan (16), Kerala (15), U P (12), M P (6) and Punjab (7). The unexpected triumph of the DMK-Congress alliance in Tamil Nadu and the Trinamool storm in the red bastion of West Bengal boosted the overall strength of UPA to around 260.

A jubilant Ms. Sonia Gandhi, the principal campaigner who opted for the party going on its own at national level, except for seat adjustments in states, said the people of India have reposed their faith in the Congress. A rejuvenated Dr. Manmohan Singh referred to the “great clarity” underlying the mandate, which, he said, entailed an obligation to the people of India to provide “a stable and secular government”. Stuck at 116, less than its 2004 total of 138, BJP conceded victory to the Congress and its Prime Ministerial candidate Mr. L K Advani announced he would retire from active politics. World reactions were again commendatory on the Indian political processes with expectations of a stable government pushing toward greater liberalisation. India Inc. is ready with its reform agenda for Government.

A striking change in the political scenario is a strong revival for the Congress in UP, being next only to Samajwadi Party with its 23 seats, attributable in the main to the contribution of Mr. Rahul Gandhi as the party's lead campaigner in the 2009 elections. In rebuilding the party in states like UP, he is trying to get the youth of the country identify itself with the Congress for its plank of “development and prosperity”, and viewed the poll outcome as a rejection by the people of the “politics of caste and religion”.

The elections have also made it clear that the regional parties have to grow out of their parochial agendas and function without overlooking the national perspective. Even if the country is not about to shift toward a two-party system on the western model, in several states the regional players have been mauled. PMK of vociferous Dr Ramadoss in Tamil Nadu has been wiped out. Regional allies of BJP also suffered ground loss barring JD(U) which gained spectacularly in Bihar, thanks to focus on development by the Chief Minister Mr. Nitish Kumar.

Both Andhra Pradesh and Orissa renewed the mandates for the Congress and BJD Governments respectively. In Andhra Pradesh, despite a “grand alliance” led by Mr. Chandrababu Naidu with the Telangana regional party and the Left, the Congress secured a safe majority in the Assembly election while the Congress raised its Lok Sabha strength from 29 to 33. Mr. Naveen Patnaik's BJD swept the polls in Orissa gaining a clear majority for his Government after breaking away from the BJP early this year. In Andhra Pradesh, a host of welfare programmes, free power to farmers and thrusts for completing major irrigation projects seemed to have worked to the advantage of Chief Minister Dr. Rajasekhara Reddy who enters the second term.

Tamil Nadu produced a surprise giving DMK-Congress alliance 28 out of 40 seats including the one in Puducherry denying Ms. Jayalalithaa, the sweet victory she had pined for with her arduous campaign and mass adulation. DMK took 18 and Congress 9 leaving one for the VCK, a fringe group favoured by DMK. Ms. Jayalalithaa gained a mere 9 seats with reverses for her Third Front allies, the Left, Mr Vaiko's MDMK and PMK. The AIADMK leader attributed her loss to the “money and muscle power freely used by DMK”.

The Communists have suffered the most serious setback in decades the way they lost both in West Bengal, they have ruled since 1977, and in Kerala with their total strength in Lok Sabha reduced from 61 in 2004 to 23 in 2009. More frustrating it must have been for Ms. Mayawati, the Dalit supremo and UP Chief Minister, who put up 500 candidates for the Lok Sabha in all states and was a Prime Minister hopeful. Her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) could get only 21 seats, as against Samajwadi Party (23) and the Congress (21) while BJP ended up with 11 seats. (IPA Service)