India a Landslide for Gandhi

The Prime Minister sweeps to an overwhelming victory

They scattered across the length and breadth of India like figures in a mythic carnival, 5,418 candidates in all, from 27 different political parties. Some wooed voters from the backs of elephants and camels; some swooped down in private helicopters; others traveled amid a cacophony of acrobats and magicians and drums.

In the former princely state of Gwalior, a scion of maharajahs, Madhavrao Scindia, 39, the local candidate for Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's Congress (I) Party, courted voters after descending each day from his sumptuous palace amid a swirl of liveried servants; just as faithfully every morning, his mother regally journeyed...

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