Slender lead seen for India's Congress as voting ends

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The ruling Congress-led coalition was slightly ahead of the opposition Hindu-nationalist alliance in Indias general election, but both groups fell well short of a parliamentary majority, TV projections said on Wednesday.
A raft of exit polls showed both alliances would need new partners, renewing concerns that a shaky coalition govt will emerge at a time when Asias third largest economy is faced with a slowdown and instability in neighbouring Pakistan.
Exit polls have had a mixed record in the past, given the difficulties of assessing an electorate of 714 million people, or more than twice the population of the United States. The polls were way off the mark in the last 2004 general election.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs Congress party-led coalition is ahead with 185-205 seats in the 543-member lower house of parliament, an exit poll by the CNN-IBN television said.
An alliance led by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would take 165 to 185 seats, leaving both the main political formations far short of the 272 needed for a majority.
A national projection by Headlines Today news channel also gave the Congress coalition a lead, but below its showing in the 2004 election. We are looking at political uncertainty and horse-trading, Amulya Ganguli, a New Delhi-based political commentator, said.
If confirmed by actual results, the outcome would mean a fall in seats for the Congress alliance compared with the 2004 election and a boost in seats for the BJP-led alliance, muddying the waters further. The point is all the allies of Congress today present or prospective are suffering and all the allies of the BJP, present or future are doing very well. That is the fundamental distinction, the BJPs spokesman Ravi Shakar Prasad said.
The rupee fell 0.9 percent over the previous days close as investors pared positions on concerns that the election may not produce a clear winner. Shares were down 1.1 percent. The actual count of votes is scheduled for Saturday and results from all the races to the 543-member lower house of parliament will be known that day.
Congress and the BJP are seen as taking broadly similar positions on Pakistan, with neither seen likely to give substantial ground until they are convinced Islamabad has dealt with the militants India blames for an attack on Mumbai last November.
AFP adds: A leading Kashmiri leader broke ranks with his movement on Wednesday by contesting a seat in Kashmir, defying a long-standing policy of boycotting general elections. Sajad Lone defended his decision to go where no anti-India leader has gone before, even though he has been denounced by some in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley as an opportunistic turncoat.
I am doing the right thing for the people of Kashmir, for the people I represent. But now with this vote I can say I am a leader because of the people and not because of India, not because of Pakistan, he told reporters.