Indian Primeminister Monmohan Singh told reporters, “The people of India have spoken, and spoken with great clarity”. The victory over the opposition Hindu-nationalist-led alliance means the left-of-center Congress may find it easier to form a stable coalition with smaller parties and be less vulnerable to pressure on issues like economic reforms.

“Eventually the people of India know what’s good for them and they always make the right choice,” Sonia Gandhi, the head of the Congress party, told reporters. Congress party supporters carrying banners of star campaigners Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, set off firecrackers in celebration on the party’s return to power.

The Congress party-led coalition was projected to win 261 seats, short of the 272 needed for a parliamentary majority, state TV said. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led opposition alliance would take 160 seats and a Third Front of communist and smaller groups 58 seats, the TV channel said.

About 714 million people were eligible to vote in the largest such exercise in the world staggered over a month to allow security forces to supervise the vote. Manmohan Singh, 76, said he wanted a cabinet role for Rahul Gandhi, heir apparent of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty who is seen as the architect of the Congress party’s resurgence in northern states. India’s booming economic growth for the past four years, including rising rural incomes, also appeared to have worked for Singh’s coalition. A political analyst said, “It seems to me that we must acknowledge the economy. Despite the slowdown in the economy in the last year, these four or five years have been among the best in India’s recorded economic history.”