PANAJI - Veteran Congress leader Eduardo Faleiro has ruled out the possibility of the party winning a simple majority in the forthcoming general elections and says coalitions are an inevitability.

The former minister of state for external affairs, who has represented Goa six times in parliament, said a hung parliament would be the inevitable outcome of the 15th Lok Sabha polls due from mid April.

‘Neither the Congress nor the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will win a simple majority. But one of the two parties will lead a coalition government at the centre,’ Faleiro said Wednesday at a seminar on ‘Elections in India’ organised at the Goa University by the Delhi based Indian Council of Social Science Research.

He said the course of the elections would be decided by young voters.

‘We have nearly 65 percent of the voters who are below the age of 35. It is these voters who will decide the victor,’ Faleiro, who has been appointed by the state government as commissioner for NRI affairs, said.

While stating that the mood of the young voter would in all likelihood tilt in favour of the Congress, Faleiro admitted that the only other party that had the ability to pull youngsters into their fold was the BJP. ‘The youth will have to decide between us (Congress) and them (BJP).’

He criticised the coalition form of governance as petty, self-driven, family-oriented fiefdoms and blamed hastily cobbled coalitions for destablising the country.

India goes to the polls in five phases from April 16 to May 13 this year.