New Delhi: Launching a scathing attack on the Congress-led alliance for electing Sonia Gandhi for Prime Ministership, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today (May 17, 2004) said that it was a "black day" in the history of independent India.

"It is a black day in the history of independent India. It is the feeling of BJP," party president Venkaiah Naidu said.

He said people had delivered a fractured mandate and BJP decided to sit in Opposition and it "was a travesty on part of Congress to claim that it had secured a verdict for Sonia Gandhi to be the Prime Minister".

Elections 2004-Where is India heading...
Political Parties in India

Naidu said the party believed that a person of foreign origin should not be given the high post of President, Vice-President, Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

Reiterating that the foreign origin issue was still an important one, he said Congress was "wrongly interpreting" the mandate as Sonia Gandhi was never projected as the Prime Ministerial candidate of the Congress-led alliance.

Stating that even the common man was "worried" and "disturbed" that neither of the two alliances was near the half-way mark of 272, he said while Congress-led alliance had got only 217 seats, National Democratic Alliance (NDA) got 186 seats.