With early general elections in the air, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh sprang a huge surprise on Thursday by announcing new tax cuts on a host of goods and services.

The government gave the stock markets barely six minutes to react to its new policies aimed at 'boosting growth, enhancing investments and driving reforms forward.'

Yet, the markets were galvanized and the Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark index -- the Sensex -- soared to 6,109 points at close.

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While the industry was not expecting this drastic reduction in excise and customs duties on many items, it was pleasantly surprised with the New Year gift.

Analysts say that the market is happy with the announcements and the Sensex is likely to skyrocket on Friday.

One analyst said that the market might open with an increase of over a 100 points.

Companies in the agri sector, mobile phone arena, power sector, IT hardware and some pharmaceutical firms stand to gain a lot.

The government on Thursday slashed customs duties on various non-agricultural goods, cell phones, IT and electronics items and abolished domestic and foreign travel tax, apart from other goods and services, with an eye on early Lok Sabha elections.

The concessions in indirect taxes will come into effect from January 9.

Analysts said that the sops announced are a step in the direction of lowering tariffs to ASEAN levels and taking advantage of heavy buffer provided by huge foreign exchange reserves.

The Bharatiya Janata Party was expected to take advantage of the feel good factor in the Indian economy and also from its recent gains in the state assembly elections by going in for early general elections, either in April or May.

The Sensex shot up by a 152 points on Thursday to close at an all-time high of 6,109 points. The NSE Nifty too closed at its all-time high of 1,969 points having increased by 52 points.