Christians elated by peudo-secular election win inIndian Elections

Christians elated by peudo-secular election win in Indian Elections

NEW DELHI (UCAN) -- Church groups in India are overjoyed by the general election result that saw the return to office of a secular alliance for a second five-year term, which they said was a repudiation of sectarianism.

 

The Indian National Congress Party led the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to victory in the poll in what is being seen as a triumph for Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Sonia Gandhi

The Italian-born Gandhi, 62, wife of slain Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and daughter-in-law of former PM Indira Gandhi, also killed in office, steered her party to its best performance in 25 years, falling just 12 seats short of an absolute majority.

The Church is "pleased" that the Indian voters have made "the right choice" to elect the UPA to lead the country, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India said in a press release soon after the results were announced on May 16.

The ecumenical All India Christian Council (AICC) says it saluted the Indians' "consummate and decisive" rejection of divisive and sectarian political forces in the elections.

Jesuit Father Cedric Prakash, who manages a human rights center, says the results were "unprecedented and totally unexpected." He hailed the election as the "triumph of Indian democracy."

Exit polls and pollsters had predicted a hung parliament with UPA having a slight edge over its main rival, National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP or Indian people's party).

In the final tally, the UPA won 262 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha (people's council), the lower house of Parliament. The alliance also claims support of several other parties.

NDA won only 160 seats.

Another major loser was the Third Front comprising communist groups and regional parties that won just 79 seats. The rest of the seats went to independents and splinter groups.

The results ended what is touted as the world's largest democratic and election management exercise that began a month ago. Around 60 percent of 713.7 million eligible voters exercised their right to vote in a five-phased election managed by about 4.69 million security personnel, three times the size of the Indian army, and about 7 million polling staff.

Father Hector D’Souza is happy that people opted for stability. (File photo)

Father Hector D'Souza, who heads the Jesuits in South Asia, was happy that the people had opted for stability. He also hoped the new secular government would stop atrocities and persecutions of religious minorities, such as last year's attacks on Christians in Orissa and other states.

Father D'Souza was also overjoyed that more young people were elected this time and wants the government to fulfill people's aspirations for development and care for the poor.

Reverend Richard Howell, general secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, says Indians had voted for secularism and development. The new government is "inclusive" and represents secular India's "true nature," he said.

Reverend Howell said voters had rejected both sectarian groups and the communists who hindered the country's progress.

The Catholic bishops said they were confident the new government would keep its promise to safeguard the country from sectarian and divisive forces and restore confidence among all people, especially religious minority groups.

The prelates said that Christians in India have always supported political parties that worked for the welfare of the poor and the oppressed. Prior to the elections they had appealed to people to elect a government that would protect the country's secular principles.

Church groups had feared there would be trouble for religious minority groups if the NDA had won the election as its leader, the BJP, is the political arm of Hindu rightwing groups that want to establish a Hindu theocratic state in India.

Several groups, including the Church, blame Hindu radicals for attacking Christians and Muslims in several parts of the country in the past few years.

The AICC says it wants the new government to correct some "aberrations" in India's secularism that caused "untold misery" to people and "unprecedented bloodshed and massacre of religious minorities."

The council's press release says India's more than 1.2 billion people want human dignity and progress, brotherhood and justice.

"They abhor hate-mongering, and narrow self interest under the pretext of ideology," it says.