Britain has woken up to a hung Parliament, an election outcome that this country last experienced in 1974 when the then Prime Minister Edward Heath tried and failed to persuade the Liberal Party to join him in a coalition.

By Friday noon, the Conservatives under David Cameron were clearly in the lead with 291 seats, compared to 251 for Labour, 52 for the LibDems, 27 others and more than 25 undecided. The House of Commons has 650 seats. A quick poll math reveals that the Conservatives have emerged as the single largest party, though one that is short of a majority.

Even though Labour’s Gordon Brown has lost his majority in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister insists it is his duty to form a stable government. This is in sharp contrast to the stand that Rajiv Gandhi took back in 1989 when the Congress emerged as the largest party but still fell short of a majority. At that time Rajiv allowed Janata Dal leader VP Singh to become the PM, backed by crucial support provided from the outside by the BJP. This minority government did not last more than 15 months.

The crucial party in Britain today, one that can swing the political fortunes of the country one way or the other, is the LibDems led by Nick Clegg. Yet even if Labour and the Lib Dems were to combine, which makes sense ideologically, the numbers still do not add up. Their coalition would have to be additionally supported by some of the other smaller regional parties from Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

From India’s perspective each of the three big parties says they are committed to fostering friendly relations with New Delhi. All three have done their economics homework and are sensitive to the advantage of tapping into India’s vast and expanding market.

Where the Asian-origin MPs are concerned, some eight NRIs have won elections, four each from the Labour Party and the Conservatives. One Labour MP, Parmjit Dhanda, lost in Gloucester. Likewise four Pakistani-origin MPs, Sadik Khan, Khalid Mahmood, Anas Sarwar and a woman lawyer Shabana Mahmood, have been successful on behalf of the Labour Party.

Shahid Malik, a junior minister who lost his seat, was a victim of the expenses scandal that rocked the British political system. Speculation that he lost because voters linked him to a country of origin that spawns terrorism, is simply not true.

Indeed allegations of corruption — linked to voter perceptions that the Labour Party has somehow lost its sheen — go a long way to explaining why the Conservatives managed to attract two million more votes than Labour.

The Conservatives emphasis on “change” and making a fresh start also seems to have struck a chord, although its impact has been more keenly felt in southern England. In Scotland, where the Conservatives retained one seat, the voting pattern was unchanged. In Wales, the Conservatives made a handful of gains.

The LibDems will play an extremely important role in the formation of the next government, although they have not been able to attract as many votes as they hoped for. They were expecting to win more than 100 seats, but they had to be satisfied with less than 60. However, despite the poor show, they still hold the trump card and are destined to play the role of kingmakers. Gordon Brown acknowledged their key role soon after the polling was over when he said he respected the right of the LibDems to talk to the Conservatives about forming a government. But he added that if such talks failed and he was still the PM, he reserved the right to also open up negotiations.

Among the surprises of this election was the high percentage of those who voted. Many will remember the long queues outside polling booths and the arguments that erupted when some voters were told they had arrived too late to cast their votes. Although the precise figures are still to be released, the general expectation is that voter turnout may have matched the 70+ per cent of the 1987 election.

One of the fears before the election was that immigration would be a major consideration among the voters. It may have played a role in undermining the LibDem’s appeal because of the amnesty proposed by party leader Nick Clegg to legitimise the status of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants.

But while immigration jokes (in poor taste) still raise an occasional chuckle ( sample: illegal immigrants are like sperm, millions get in but only one works), an overtly racist party like the BNP failed miserably in a bid to capture one seat. Even their leader Nick Griffin was forced into third place.

Another surprise of this election was the way the media abandoned the Labour Party at the last moment. Even Labour loyalist newspapers like The Guardian and The Observer flipped to the LibDems. Despite such hostility, Gordon Brown still managed to claw back a measure of popular support. What this means is that the media was not able to correctly judge the mood of the people who kept their voting intentions as close to their chests as possible.