Sonia, Rahul take responsibility for poor Congress show

New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son and party vice president Rahul Gandhi Friday took responsibility for the party's worst ever drubbing in the Lok Sabha election.

Addressing a brief press conference after it became clear that party would be relegated to a poor 50-odd seats, Sonia Gandhi said: "We with all humility accept the mandate of the people and hope that the new government at the centre will uphold the unity and interests of the country."

"As president I take responsibility for the defeat," she said and also congratulated the new government without naming BJP leader Narendra Modi, who is set to become the new prime minister of India.

A smiling Rahul Gandhi said he wanted to congratulate the new government.

"They have been given the mandate by the people, I want to wish them the best."

"The Congress has done pretty badly, and there is a lot to think about...I hold myself responsible."

Boney Kapoor suffers minor injury in car accident

Mumbai: Producer Boney Kapoor, who was on his way to Wahi where his film "Tevar" is being shot, Wednesday met with a car accident. His manager said Kapoor had a minor injury but was fine.

"Boney was on his way to Wahi where his film 'Tevar' is being shot. His driver was driving the car and suddenly they met with an accident with a tractor. Though Boney has a minor injury in his back, he is absolutely fine... nothing serious at all. The accident took place close to 9 p.m.," Punkej Kharbanda, manager of Sridevi Kapoor, told IANS.

"His driver also had a minor injury and Boney Kapoor's boy who was sitting in the back seat was injured a bit because of the sudden jerk," he said.

The car was damaged in the accident on the Satara highway, "but thankfully all three of them are fine", he added.

Boney Kapoor suffers minor injury in car accident

Mumbai: Producer Boney Kapoor, who was on his way to Wahi where his film "Tevar" is being shot, Wednesday met with a car accident. His manager said Kapoor had a minor injury but was fine.

"Boney was on his way to Wahi where his film 'Tevar' is being shot. His driver was driving the car and suddenly they met with an accident with a tractor. Though Boney has a minor injury in his back, he is absolutely fine... nothing serious at all. The accident took place close to 9 p.m.," Punkej Kharbanda, manager of Sridevi Kapoor, told IANS.

"His driver also had a minor injury and Boney Kapoor's boy who was sitting in the back seat was injured a bit because of the sudden jerk," he said.

The car was damaged in the accident on the Satara highway, "but thankfully all three of them are fine", he added.

Modi tsunami creates history, Congress crushed; Modi to be PM

New Delhi: Narendra Modi created history on Friday on his way to becoming India's 14th prime minister as he led the BJP to a spectacular victory in a Lok Sabha battle that crushed the Congress and others ranged against him and gave, for the first time in 30 years, any party a majority in parliament on its own.

Even political pundits gasped at the sheer scale of the Bharatiya Janata Party's sweep that election officials said was poised to give it a comfortable majority in the 545-member Lok Sabha even without the aid of its old and new allies.

The Congress, India's oldest party which had ruled the country for a decade since 2004, faced its worst humiliation. It had won three seats and was leading only in 39 more -- its worst tally in the Lok Sabha where it had never fallen to two digits. The Congress won 206 seats in 2009.

If it gets less than ten percent of the total number of Lok Sabha seats, its president may not be recognised as the Leader of Opposition, a cabinet rank.

The Congress did not win a single seat in seven states and it was unlikely to win more than 10 seats in any state.

A chastened Congress accepted defeat. Outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh congratulated Modi who is still the Gujarat chief minister. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh summed up the mood in the country's oldest party by saying: 'Our performance is worse than the worst case scenario.'

Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who won easily from Rae Bareli unlike her son Rahul Gandhi, added: 'The people's verdict is against us.' Both took responsibility for the defeat, congratulated the BJP but didn't name Modi.

As an army of officials continued to count the 550 million votes 1.72 million electronic voting machines polled across the country, the BJP had won 26 seats and was leading in a whopping 255 others by 4 p.m.

The BJP is thus poised to bag a total of 281 seats in the Lok Sabha, where a party needs 272 for a simple majority. Modi is expected to be sworn in prime minister by President Pranab Mukherjee on May 21.

A visibly jubilant Modi promptly called on his ageing mother, the one person he respects the most, in Gandhinagar. Party colleague Ravi Shankar Prasad said: 'The results show the people of India love Modi.'

'The most fundamental factor behind such a decisive mandate is the all India anti-Congress sentiment,' political commentator Dipankar Gupta told IANS.

BJP president Rajnath Singh described the party's victory as 'superb' and said 'a new era has begun in Indian politics.' Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raj said Modi had 'electrified the nation.' Amit Shah, Modi's closest aide, declared that India was poised to see major changes in politics.

The BJP was poised to win all but seven seats in Uttar Pradesh which elects the maximum of 80 members to the Lok Sabha. The BJP-led combine was also poised to bag 31 of the 40 seats in neighbouring Bihar.

Interestingly, three of the four regional parties which too did well in their strongholds were not allied with Modi even if their leaders have had good equations with him.

Tamil Nadu's ruling AIADMK led by Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa will be the third largest party in the Lok Sabha. It was on the victory lap in 36 of the state's 39 seats - a showing that punctured long-time rival DMK.

In West Bengal, the ruling Trinamool Congress decimated the Left. It won three of the 42 seats and was leading all others in 31 constituencies. The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha is set to win 20 of the 21 seats.

The BJP's oldest ally, the Shiv Sena, was on the victory lap in 19 of the 48 constituencies. The Shiv Sena-BJP combine would win 40 seats in the state.

The stock market shot up on news of the imminent BJP victory.

All BJP stalwarts won easily including Narendra Modi, from both Vadodara in Gujarat and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. Other prominent BJP victors were L.K. Advani (Gandhinagar), Rajnath Singh (Lucknow), Murli Manohar Joshi (Kanpur), Nitin Gadkari (Nagpur) and Sushma Swaraj (Vidisha).

The only BJP leader who lost was Arun Jaitley, leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha who was trounced by former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh of the Congress in Amritsar.

Tens of thousands of BJP supporters celebrated the party's victory all over the country. In New Delhi, thousands gathered at the BJP headquarters dancing, bursting firecrakcers and distributing sweets.

Many Congress veterans bit the dust. They included Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, Ambika Soni, Kapil Sibal, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ajay Maken and Pawan Kumar Bansal.

The Left too suffered a major blow. AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, who claimed he would easily defeat Modi in Varanasi, lost by more than 200,000 votes. IANS

ELECTION RESULT -2014

339

144

56

Uttar Pradesh - 80

BJP	71
SP	5
BSP	0
INC	2
AAP	0
RLD	0
INLD	0
APNA DAL	2

Maharashtra - 48

INC	1
NCP	4
BJP	23
Shivsena	19
MNS	0
RPI	0
Swabhiman Paksha	1
AAP	0
IND	0
OTH	0

West Bengal - 42

TMC	34
CPM	2
CPI	0
RSP	0
FB	0
INC	4
BJP	2
AAP	0
IND	0
OTH	0

Bihar - 40

JDU	2
BJP	22
INC	2
RJD	4
LJP	6
AAP	0
IND	0
NCP	1
RLSP	3

Tamil Nadu - 39

AIADMK	37
DMK	0
BJP	1
DMDK	0
PMK	1
MDMK	0
INC	0
AAP	0
IND	0
	0

12

8

0

Trivandrum
UDF [Lead- 15470 ]

Kollam
UDF [Lead- 37649 ]

Pathanamthitta
UDF [Lead- 56191 ]

Mavellikkara
UDF [Lead- 32737 ]

Alappuzha
UDF [Lead- 19407 ]

Kottayam
UDF [Lead- 120599 ]

Ernakulam
UDF [Lead- 87047 ]

Ponnani
UDF [Lead- 25410 ]

Malappuram
UDF [Lead- 194739 ]

Kozhikode
UDF [Lead- 16883 ]

Wayanad
UDF [Lead- 20870 ]

Vadakara
UDF [Lead- 3306 ]

Attingal
LDF [Lead- 69378 ]

Idukki
LDF [Lead- 50542 ]

Chalakudy
LDF [Lead- 13884 ]

Thrissur
LDF [Lead- 38277 ]

Alathur
LDF [Lead- 37312 ]

Palakkad
LDF [Lead- 105300 ]

Kannur
LDF [Lead- 6566 ]

Kasaragod
LDF [Lead- 692

World's largest flawless blue diamond fetches $23.7 mn

Geneva:A pear-shaped flawless 13.22 carat blue diamond, the world's largest, was sold for $23.7 million at Christie's Magnificent Jewels sale with a world record sale price of $1.7 million per carat, the event's organisers said Thursday.

Christie's said in a statement that 85 percent of the offered lots were sold of which 27 went at above $1 million.

Fetching the second best price was a 1912 Cartier's brooch at $17.5 million, followed by a 75.97 carat pear-shaped diamond for $14.4 million.

'The jewellery market continues to remain extremely vibrant and we look forward to a buoyant season as we move to auctions at Hong Kong, London, Paris and New York,' said Rahul Kadakia, international head of Christie's jewellery department.

Making it to the world auction record is a 76.51 carat cut-cornered square-cut light pink diamond necklace that was sold for $10 million and a triangular-cut blue-green diamond of 5.50 carat sold for $8.6 million. IANS

274 dead in Turkey's worst-ever mine disaster

Soma (Turkey) : In a relentless procession that ignited wails of grief, rescue workers coated in grime lumbered out of a mine in western Turkey again and again today, struggling to carry stretchers laden with bodies covered in blankets.

The corpses' faces were as black as the coal they worked on daily. There were 274 of them - and the fate of up to 150
other miners remained unclear in Turkey's deadliest-ever mining disaster.

While emergency workers battled a toxic mix of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in deep underground tunnels to try
to find survivors, anger and despair engulfed the town of Soma, where Turkish officials said at least 274 miners died in
Tuesday's coal mine explosion and fire.

Tensions were high as hundreds of relatives and miners jostled outside the mine's entrance Wednesday, waiting for
news. They were countered by a heavy police presence.

Rows of women wailed uncontrollably and men knelt sobbing or just stared in disbelief as rescue workers removed body
after body. To let off steam, some heckled Turkish officials, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as they passed
by.

Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said 787 people had been inside the coal mine at the time of yesterday's explosion: 274
had died, 363 had been rescued and scores of them were injured.

The death toll topped a 1992 gas explosion that killed 263 workers near Turkey's Black Sea port of Zonguldak.

It also left 150 miners still unaccounted for. Erdogan said today that 120 miners were still missing. There was no
immediate way to reconcile the differing figures.

Rescuers were still trying to vent out the carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and pump clean air into the mine,
according to mine owner Soma Komur Isletmeleri A S.

Yildiz said rescue workers were trying to reach the bodies of 20-22 people trapped in one specific zone. Some of
the workers had been up to 420 meters deep inside the mine, he said. (AP)

Vehicle check yields Rs 5.7 lakh in 3 hours in Kozhikode

Kozhikode: As many as 1,407 traffic rule violators were caught by officials of Police and Motor vehicles departments during a three hour drive on Wednesday morning in Kozhikode town. A total fine of Rs 5.57 lakh was levied from the offenders during the inspection held from 9 am to 12 pm.

The drive titled 'operation Monsoon' was simultaneously conducted at 68 spots during which the functioning of lights, indicators, windscreen wipers, brake, clutch etc were checked. Also the documents of the vehicle, including pollution certificate, were subjected to inspection.

Of the 3,600 vehicles checked, 1,407 were found to have flouted traffic rules. While police collected Rs 3,15,200 in the form of penalty, the motor vehicle department collected Rs 2,61,700. 

275 money lenders arrested in Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Police has arrested 275 illegal money lenders in the past three days, following the suicide of a family of five here in Kerala after harassment from such lenders, a minister said Wednesday.

Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala said after a high-level meeting of police officials that the 'Operation Khubera' launched by police to nab illegal money lenders has been very effective.

'In the three days since this operation began all across the state, 374 cases have been registered, 275 people have been arrested and over Rs.1.4 crore cash has been seized. The raids will continue,' he said.

Chennithala also said there have been media reports of a nexus between police officials and the illegal money lenders.

'This has come to our attention and we are looking into the issue. Anyone found violating the law would be seriously dealt with. Any police official with dubious track record will not be given key posts,' he said.

He said there were 10,280 registered organisations engaged in private banking in Kerala, while there were unregistered ones too.

'We have given time till June 30 to all those who have not registered. We will put up on the tax department website the list of all registered private bankers. A link will also be provided to the Kerala Police website,' Chennithala said.

He said police will also look into reports of illegal financing by people for the Malayalam film industry.

Counting tomorrow; nearly 8000 candidates for 543 LS seats

New Delhi : Votes polled in the nine-phased Lok Sabha elections will be counted tomorrow to decide who will form the next government.

Election Commission said the counting exercise to be held at 989 counting centres is likely to be completed by 5 PM and
trends will be available by 11 AM.

By noon, a final picture could emerge on who would be the major players in the 16th Lok Sabha.

Nearly 8000 candidates, including top guns Narendra Modi, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal were in the
fray, in the largest-ever electoral exercise held in Indian history.

The exit polls have projected that BJP will emerge as the single largest party.

The counting of votes will begin at 8 AM when the postal ballots will be counted. According to EC guidelines,
half-and-hour after the postal ballots are counted, the process of counting votes from the EVMs will begin.

The 'ballot unit' is switched on in the presence of senior poll officials and counting agents of candidates and
the result command keyed in to get results per machine.

These were the first Lok Sabha elections when the option of 'none of the above' or NOTA was introduced on the EVMs
following Supreme Court directions to ensure secrecy of voters who use this option.

Before NOTA button was installed on EVMs, voters had to fill up form 49 'O' at the polling station which compromised
their identity.

Where a paper trail audit or 'voter-verified paper audit trail' (VVPAT) has been used, the counting agent can call for
a count of the paper slips in the drop box attached to the voting machine, but a final count is taken by the returning
officer.

The polling in all phases was by and large peaceful barring a few incidents by Maoists and some poll-related
violence.

Lok Sabha elections 2014 witnessed the highest-ever turnout with 66.38 per cent of an estimated 814 million voters
exercising their franchise -- the highest ever in the history of general elections.

Once the results are declared, the names of the winning candidates will find mention in the gazette to be issued by
the Election Commission.

The gazette notification will initiate the process to form the next Lok Sabha.

The campaign held in blistering heat in several parts of the country was replete with barbs by various political
leaders.

During the high decibel campaign marked by vitriolic accusations, Modi constantly targeted Rahul as 'shehzada' and
the UPA dispensation as the 'mother-son' government besides going after Sonia's son-in-law Robert Vadra over alleged land
deals.

He also hurled barbs at the UPA government, saying it represented the 'ABCD' of corruption, referring to Adarsh,
Bofors and Coal scams. He also took a 'RSVP' jibe at the Nehru-Gandhi family, saying R stood for Rahul, S for Sonia, V
for Vadra and P for Priyanka.

He often ridiculed his rival parties for having a one-point 'Stop Modi' agenda.

The BJP Prime Ministerial candidate also had his share of criticism with several leaders taking him on in connection
with the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat.

The Trinammol Congress in West Bengal called Modi the 'butcher' of Gujarat after he escalated his attack against
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, saying there is no 'poribartan' in the eastern state.

Taking the political battle to an all time low, SP leader Azam Khan called Modi an elder brother of a 'dog's pup' while
Union Minister Beni Prasad Verma of Congress dubbed the Gujarat Chief Minister as the 'biggest goon' of RSS. Verma had
also dubbed Modi as a 'monster'.

Sonia and Rahul put Modi in the crosshairs over alleged favours given to the Adani group in land deals and claimed
that he favoured only select industrialists. Rahul hurled 'balloon' and 'toffee model' barbs at the BJP Prime
Ministerial candidate.

The Congress also attacked Modi for constantly harping on Gujarat model of development, claiming there has been no
development at all in the western state during his rule.

Priyanka was also brought into the campaign by the Congress towards the later stages and managed to energise the
cadres in UP. But she confined her campaign to Amethi and Rae Bareli. PTI