A charged-up Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi brimming with confidence after guiding the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance to a massive win in the Lok Sabha elections promised that "acche din aane wale hain (good days are about to start)" during his victory speech in Vadodara, which he won by over 5.7 lakh votes, and Ahmedabad while mocking his rivals of being forced to talk about development due to his emphasis on the agenda in a country looking for a fresh and energetic leadership.
With the biggest mandate since 1984 and the first time since then that a single party has managed to secure majority on its own in the Lok Sabha, Modi addressed thousands of his cheering supporters calling the May 16 verdict as historic pointing out that this will be the first time that a truly non-Congress government will take over the reins of the country.
Before Modi came out to deliver his stirring speech, the country had already turned saffron as the BJP and its allies brushed aside the challenge of their rivals to easily cross the 300-seat mark with the BJP alone crossing the half-way mark of 272 seats to script history.
Modi is likely to be sworn in as the prime minister of India on May 21 and it will be the first time that a person born after Indian's independence will take over the post.
Soon after counting began, it became clear that the BJP-led NDA was going to win big but what followed was a complete decimation of the opposition as the voters seemed to have lapped up his call for a Congress-mukt Bharat (Congress-free India) with gusto.
BJP's principal rival, the Congress was annihilated as the party failed to reach the double-digit mark in any state and was completely blanked by the Modi juggernaut in several others. Coming up with its worst ever electoral performance in the Lok Sabha, the Congress under the insipid leadership of Rahul Gandhi stopped short of the 50-seat mark, effectively making it a regional party.
The Congress also faces the humiliation of not even being officially designated as the Opposition as the party has failed to reached the mandated 10 per cent seat mark necessary for bagging the Opposition tag.
The massive win was made easier by a completely lacklustre Congress election campaign which came after its Central government had been completely discredited due to humungous corruption, policy paralysis, rising prices, economic slowdown, weak leadership exemplified by both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and campaigner-in-chief Rahul Gandhi, who came across as a clueless charioteer.
The Modi tsunami was so powerful that rival parties failed to open their accounts in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Delhi, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh while in states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarkhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh the opposition was left to pick up the crumbs.
The only two seats that the Congress won in Uttar Pradesh were Rahul's Amethi and Sonia Gandhi's Raebareli.
Congress won just nine seats in Karnataka, its highest tally from a single state, where it is also the ruling party. The Karnataka show was a reflection of the party's fate across the country as in big states like Gujarat and Rajasthan it was a big zero for the grand old party of India.
While a vast majority of NDA candidates won by a large margin, the reverse was true of its rivals as their successful candidates managed to huff and puff their way to victory.
Modi-powered NDA also navigated all the caste and community barriers and steamrolled the opposition as West, North, Central, parts of East, Northeast and South India was painted saffron. Constituency after constituency saw the candidates from the BJP and its allies trouncing his/her rival easily.
The BJP put up is best ever performance since its inception and surpassed its performance under former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in almost all the states blanking out the Congress completely in several regions.
Regional satraps in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were blown away as the BJP along with its partners marched on without any resistance successfully negotiating the caste quagmire.
Samajwadi Party's Mulayam Singh Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, Janata Dal United's Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad failed to stand up to the Modi power and meekly surrendered.
While Mulayam managed to secure five seats, Mayawati's elephant scored a duck. In Bihar, Nitish Kumar was made to bite the dust as just two of his candidates were victorious while the hype around Lalu's resurgence proved to be a mirage as the RJD won just four seats. Lalu's wife Rabri Devi from Saran and daughter Misa Bharti from Pataliputra were swept aside in the Modi wave.
Except Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and West Bengal, the Modi tsunami destroyed the opposition in all the major states. From Assam in the northeast to Jammu and Kashmir in north to Rajasthan in west and Andhra Pradesh in the south, Modi left his deep imprint everywhere.
Buoyed by the huge mandate, Modi tweeted, "India has won! Bharat ki vijay. Good days are about to come."
Except Arun Jaitley in Amritsar and Smriti Irani in Amethi, almost all the big BJP leaders won easily while a host of Congress stalwarts bit the dust.
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