The All India Trinamul Congress pulled off a landslide victory in a historic decision in West Bengal by defeating the Communist Party of India (Marxist) led Left Front after 34 years of the Left’s rule in the state. Apart from the State of Bengal, Assam’s election results reaffirmed people’s faith in the erstwhile Chief Minister of Assam Tarun Gogoi as he led the Indian National Congress to victory for a third consecutive term, this time without any requirement of forming a coalition with any regional party.
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam along with its allies defeated the Indian National Congress+Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam+allies in both Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in what looks like an outright verdict against the latter’s involvement multi crore 2G spectrum scam where recently the ex-Department of Telecommunications Minister Adimuttu Raja had been recently arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in his involvement in the scam. Daughter of DMK chief Karunanidhi, Kanimozhi had also been alleged involvement by the Investigation agency in relation to the kickbacks received by the party owned Kalaigar TV from Swan Telecom. It was however a neck to neck fight in Kerala where the Congress led UDF gained a narrow margin over the Left led LDF.
The actual numbers of votes have not yet been confirmed by the Election Commission.India has a federal government, with elected officials at the federal (national), state and local levels. On a national level, the head of government, the Prime Minister, is elected directly by the people, through a general election. All members of the federal legislature, the Parliament, are directly elected. Elections in India take place every five years by universal adult suffrage.
In 2009, the elections involved an electorate of 714 million (larger than both EU and US elections combined). Declared expenditure has trebled since 1989 to almost $300 million, using more than one million electronic voting.
