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Tuesday, Mar 6, 2012 11:45 AM UTC

India’s Ruling Congress Party Loses Key State Poll

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India's Ruling Congress Party Loses Key State PollSamajwadi Party supporters smear each others' faces with colored powder as they celebrate an early lead of the party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh state election in Lucknow, India, Tuesday, March 6, 2012. Election officials across five Indian states Tuesday began counting votes in crucial provincial elections that are being seen as a test of strength for the country's ruling Congress party. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)(Credit: AP)

LUCKNOW, India (AP) — India’s governing Congress party was badly beaten in a key state election Tuesday, a sharp rebuke that could cripple the already embattled national government over the final two years of its term.

With early returns showing Congress coming in fourth place in the Uttar Pradesh polls, party icon Rahul Gandhi admitted defeat. Gandhi, seen as his party’s likely next prime ministerial candidate, had put his reputation on the line by campaigning relentlessly across India’s most populous state.

“I led this campaign and I was the person in front. The responsibility is mine,” Gandhi said, adding that his party had poor organization in the state.

Mayawati, the bottom-caste dalit leader who is the state’s incumbent chief minister, also suffered a crushing defeat as the socialist Samajwadi Party’s victory appeared strong enough to allow it to form a government on its own.

“People have risen above caste and religion to vote for the Samajwadi Party and that is why it’s clear that we are headed toward a majority,” said Akhilesh Yadav, a top party leader.

Final results were expected later Tuesday.

Mayawati, who uses one name, drew criticism during her 5-year rule for spending a fortune on public parks complete with gigantic statues of herself and other party leaders instead of reforming the health and education systems.

Yadav said the electorate had punished Mayawati for a lack of governance.

“She did not work the way she should have. The millions that were wasted on the statues, if that had been utilized properly, I think Uttar Pradesh would have benefited greatly,” he told New Delhi Television News.

Results from the Election Commission projected Congress to make only small gains from the paltry 22 seats it controlled in the current 403-seat state assembly.

Ajit Kumar Singh, director of the Giri Institute of Development Studies in the state capital, Lucknow, said voters turned to the Samajwadi Party because they saw it as the best chance of ousting their mercurial chief minister.

“People were fed up with the dictatorial attitude of Mayawati,” he said.

Results from four other local elections were also being counted Tuesday and the Congress had managed to hold onto power in the tiny, insurgency-wracked state of Manipur in the northeast but lost in coastal Goa state. In the states of Punjab and Uttarakhand results were still too close to call.

The results in Uttar Pradesh, where Congress leaders had hoped to triple their seat count, are a blow to Gandhi’s aspirations to be taken seriously as a national leader.

Gandhi, who is a parliamentarian from Uttar Pradesh, is a member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has dominated Indian politics since independence from Britain in 1947. His mother is Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born Congress party president; his father, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was assassinated in 1991. The family is not related to independence leader Mohandas Gandhi.

The Congress-led national coalition has been battered by corruption scandals and weakened by growing opposition from rebellious smaller parties within the government that have blocked major new legislation.

Congress had hoped a strong showing would rejuvenate the government and give it leverage to widen the coalition and pressure its wayward allies to fall in line. A poor showing will leave the government limping toward the next election in 2014, even as economic growth slows and analysts say the nation is desperately in need of a transformative reform agenda.

The massive elections in the five states were spread out from late January to March 3 and saw a high voter turnout, with at least 60 percent of the electorate voting in each state.

More Biswajeet Banerjee.

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