And the winner is............

That's what everyone was waiting for. And when finally it was announced everyone was in for a surprise. Coz till the results day everyone was sure that no single political party will emerge victorious this time round. Everyone was waiting to find out who will join hands with whom. But Congress not only managed to surpass its arch rival BJP but managed to go past the 200 mark all alone. And with that the UPA is close to the half way mark required to form the government. With the support of a few small parties and a few independents they will easily reach there. They don't need the Left, nor do they need Lalu and they don't Mulayam.

The much hyped Fourth Front could not manage to eat into Congress's pie nor could the NDA with its various tactics ranging from weak PM to Modi'ism. None of it worked for the NDA and the BJP in fact lost votes as compared to the earlier election. The Left also has nowhere to hide it's face after its debacle especially in Bengal and Kerala.

So what worked for the Congress inspite of 26/11 and inspite of the recession?

The fact that there is someone like Manmohan Singh who has a certain amount of integrity and intelligence as compared to someone like Advani probably worked for the Congress. Had someone like AB Vajpayee been with the BJP the scenario would have been different. Also the fact that Congress has a young brand of politicians like Rahul Gandhi, Milind Deora, Sachin Pilot, Jyotindra Schindia to name a few helped in getting the youth vote for the party. The BJP also probably made a big blunder of sorts by projecting Modi as the future PM. The Muslim votes might have swung in favour of the Congress because of this stand of the BJP.

And most importantly what people were looking forward to was a good stable government in this time of global economic crisis and the only party which came close to that was the Congress. With the infighting going on in the BJP, they lost confidence of the people.

Also, in today's times, where terrorism is a big threat, people do not want religious violence to add to the insecurity and fear. The hate speeches and strong 'Hindutva' stand probably didn't help the BJP in creating the right impression for the voters.

This election result has given a clear sign that the people no longer think only regionally. The Congress winning by such a huge margin goes to show that the Indian voters have started thinking at a national level as well.