BANGALORE, India, May 27 (UPI) -- India's Bharatiya Janata Party, after a stunning election win in Karnataka, is ready to rule the southern state, whose capital is the technology hub Bangalore.
Often referred to as the Hindu nationalist party, the BJP is the main opposition to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Congress Party, which heads the ruling federal coalition in New Delhi.
The win in the Karnataka assembly elections marked BJP's first major thrust into India's Southern region, which had regarded it as a party of Hindi-speaking northerners. With Karnataka becoming another state with a BJP government, the party has become the most serious challenger in general elections next year to Singh's Congress, which is struggling to fight rising inflation, skyrocketing prices, terrorism and a host of other issues.
The BJP won 110 of the 224 Karnataka assembly seats, just three short of a simple majority, but party leader B.S. Yeddyurappa, who is expected to sworn in as chief minister Wednesday, managed to win support from five of the six independent winners to proclaim a majority.
