Janata Dal (U) said on Thursday that the people's verdict favouring it and its ally BJP in the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar was the "beginning of the end of Laloo-Rabri raj" and demanded a probe into the "massive rigging" by the ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal. Party president Sharad Yadav told reporters here that despite massive efforts by the ruling RJD to rig the polls, it had failed to get many seats. RJD would also be ousted in the assembly elections scheduled to be held early next year, he said. Yadav, who contested the polls against Laloo Prasad Yadav in Madhepura, said his margin of victory would have been much higher had there been no rigging.

BJP says it stands vindicated

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday said the election results had vindicated its stand that the country will not accept a person of foreign origin as its Prime Minister. "People seem to have rejected the idea of having a person of foreign origin as the Prime Minister, with the Congress tally reaching the lowest level in the past 52 years," BJP spokesman M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters in New Delhi. He said by voting NDA back to power, the people have punished the forces of destabilisation. BJP continued to maintain supremacy as the single largest party notwithstanding setbacks in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka.

Hegde advises BJP not to overreach

Senior Janata Dal (U) leader Ramakrishna Hegde on Thursday advised BJP that it should not try to "overreach" if the coalition experiment at the Centre should succeed. "We must work with each other in complete confidence and we should not try to overreach," Hegde said in an "advice" to BJP during an interview with a private television network. Hegde was responding when asked about his comments during and before the polls that "BJP should not be too greedy." He said the issue of JD(U) entry into NDA would be decided at the next meeting of the coordination committee.

Contentious issues not on: Advani

Home minister LK Advani has said contentious issues like Ayodhya and uniform civil code "are not on the table" of the new government which will function on the basis of an agreed manifesto. "They are not on the table. This coalition will function on the basis of the manifesto which was issued by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (before the elections)," he told BBC World in an election programme. Advani rejected suggestions that BJP has compromised on Hindutva and asserted that his party was not for "Hinduisation" of India.

NDA victory unfortunate: Basu

West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu has described the return of the BJP-led alliance to power as "unfortunate emergence of communal forces" and asked his party to "take lessons" from the election results. "It is unfortunate that communal forces have come up in post-election scene," Basu told newsmen in Calcutta. Stating that he would fly to Delhi this evening to attend the CPI(M) politburo meeting slated to review the post-election situation, Basu told newsmen that his party would have to take "lessons" from the results of the Lok Sabha elections.

Gowda bows out in dignity

Janata Dal(S) president and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda on Thursday said his party had accepted the verdict given by the electorate of Karnataka. "Our party bows to the verdict," Gowda said, reacting to the party's drubbing in both the Lok Sabha polls, in which it failed to open its account, and Assembly elections, which returned only seven of its nominees so far. Gowda said the party entered the electoral battle with the "good intention" of remaining equidistant from the Congress and BJP.