Modi humble but fact is he has vanquished all

Ahmedabad: Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday thanked the people of Gujarat after the BJP recorded a thumping victory in the Assembly elections.

"I thank the people of Gujarat for giving me the responsibility of governance for another term," he said in a press statement.

"I humbly accept the historic verdict of the people," he said. "Let us rise above political equations and rededicate ourselves for the development of the state.

"The credit for the victory goes not to me or the BJP but to the five and a half crore people of Gujarat because the agenda for the election was set not by any political party but by them.”

The BJP had got 111 seats till 1600 hrs IST and may end up a with a two-third majority in a House of 182. The party had won 127 seats in 2002 and the small dip in numbers this election is just a minor blip in 57-year-old Modi’s domination of the elections.

Counting trends showed that the BJP had beaten back a strong challenge from its own rebels in Saurashtra, where former chief minister Keshubhai Patel's influence was expected to cause major losses.

It also managed to hold on to most of the other regions of Gujarat, retaining a majority of the seats that it won in 2002 on the strength of a sharp communal divide in the wake of the Godhra train burning and sectarian violence. North Gujarat, which saw the worst violence in 2002, went almost wholly with the BJP.

Even the alienation from the Chief Minister of a section of the ultra-nationalist Vishwa Hindu Parishad did not hurt Modi.

The Congress, which had hoped to win 80 to 90 seats, could not make any significant headway despite high-pitched campaigning by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, whose scathing attacks on Modi, like describing him as a "merchant of death", drew a vicious response.

The Congress, which won 51 seats five years ago, is expected to get no more than 60 this time, officials said. Less than half a dozen seats would go to smaller parties and independents, making the contest a highly polarised battle.

This is the fourth consecutive victory for the BJP in Gujarat after the 1995, 1998 and 2002 assembly elections. Modi assumed charge of Gujarat in October 2001 replacing Keshubhai Patel.

(With IANS and PTI)