In the 2009 Parliamentary Elections, no single party won a majority. How was the government formed? Discuss with the help of your teacher and write a paragraph.

In May 2009 the UPA won a near majority, with 262 seats, and the Congress Party improved its own tally from 145 in the 2004 election to 206. The president of the Congress Party and chairperson of the UPA, Sonia Gandhi, widow of slain former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, had once again nominated Manmohan Singh as prime minister. Because Singh was elected to the parliament as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house, the party’s senior most leaders, Pranab Mukherjee, continued as leader of the party in the Lok Sabha. While the triumvirate of Sonia Gandhi, her son, Rahul, and Manmohan Singh ran the party, the government was headed by Gandhi. The opposition to the ruling alliance was divided largely between the National Democratic Alliance, a coalition led by the main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which won 157 seats, and the so-called Third Front, a shifting alliance of left-wing-, regional-, and caste-based parties led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which captured 80 seats.

The Congress Party named Singh its candidate for prime minister, and the BJP selected Lal Krishna Advani; the Third Front had no candidate. The Congress Party sought support on the basis of its good record of economic management, improvement in relations with major powers, especially the United States (with which India had signed a historic agreement for cooperation in the development of civil nuclear energy), and the promise of a “youthful” leadership under Rahul Gandhi.

Most opinion polls and several exit polls had forecast a “hung” parliament, with no coalition capable of forming a stable government. The results, however, favored the ruling coalition, with the Congress Party performing impressively in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh (in the latter the party held on to power in the state assembly with a thumping majority). While the media credited Prime Minister Singh with securing the victory on the basis of his impressive leadership on the economic and foreign-policy fronts, traditional Congress Party supporters preferred to credit Rahul Gandhi’s leadership.

SOURCE – INTERNET