New Delhi, April 13:

India’s Left parties today said they were “pleased with the Maoists’ march to victory”.

However, the general secretaries of the Communist Party of India (CPI) as well as the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) preferred to keep their counsel and wait for the complete results.

CPI general secretary AB Bardhan said: “We will wait for the final outcome and comment only in a day or two.” His CPI-M counterpart Prakash Karat said: “We will wait for the final tally. But we welcome the way in which the elections have been conducted. It is a good thing.” “This is a two-part counting. So only when the final counting is complete, we will speak,” Karat said today.

MK Pandhe, CPI-M politburo member and general secretary of the Centre of India Trade Unions (CITU), commended the Nepal Maoists’ victory.

“People have voted against monarchy. It is a good omen for democracy. We hope that under the leadership of the Maoists, Nepal emerges as a vibrant and dynamic democracy. The new government should maintain peace and harmony at any cost,” he said.

Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) general secretary Abani Roy described the results so far as “a victory of the democratic people of Nepal”.

“It demonstrates that the Maoists were the most popular force in Nepal and contrary to all the propaganda they were very much in the movement for restoration of democracy in Nepal,” Roy said.

Another report from New Delhi quoted Prachanda as telling Indian TV channel Times Now that Nepal would keep “equal distance” between its two giant neighbours India and China, but that good relations with New Delhi were “important”.