The Sensex opened below the 5,500-mark with a huge negative gap of 84 points at 5,472. As the news of TDP losing out to Congress gained momentum, the index in mid-morning deals slipped below the 5,400-mark on brisk selling.

In the biggest single day decline in the past 45 months, the Sensex plummeted 247 points during the intra-day trades with overall BSE market capitalisation loss amounting to Rs 54,550 crores.

Continuing with its bearish trend in the afternoon trades, the Sensex, on the back of relentless selling across-the-board plunged deep into the red to touch an intra-day low of 5,309.

The Sensex finally wrapped up the session with a huge slump of 4.14% (down 230 pts) at 5,326. The Nifty slipped below the 1,700-mark to end 70 points down at 1,699.

The Sensex had last tumbled by a large margin of 275.23 and closed at 4188.34 on July 24, 2000.

All the 30 Sensex stocks declined today, with volumes recorded at 3.33 crore amounting to Rs 1,420.34 crore.

ITC witnessed relentless selling in its counter, and scaled down 6.56% (Rs 66) to close at Rs 937. Reliance slipped below the Rs 500-mark, and ended 5.66% lower (Rs 29) to Rs 490. HLL was down a per cent (Rs 2) at Rs 141.

HPCL slipped sharply towards the closing hours to end 8.87% lower (Rs 41) at Rs 419. SBI pared losses on fresh buying support, but still lost 1.85% (Rs 12) to Rs 617. While BHEL lost 4.33% (Rs 26) to Rs 571, MTNL dropped 4.87% (Rs 7) to Rs 143.

Grasim shed 3.33% (Rs 39) to Rs 1,123. While L&T tumbled 5.30% (Rs 30) to Rs 528, Gujarat Ambuja slumped 4.40% (Rs 15) to Rs 317. ACC was down 2.64% (Rs 7) at Rs 268.

Infosys lost 1.40% (Rs 72) to Rs 5,055. While Satyam dipped 2.61% (Rs 8) to Rs 297, Wipro was down 1.81% (Rs 28) at Rs 1,508.

Hero Honda dipped 5.10% (Rs 25) to Rs 460. Tata Motors scaled down 6.40% (Rs 29) to Rs 429. Bajaj was down 2.22% (Rs 21) at Rs 916.

HDFC crashed 6.60% (Rs 43) to Rs 605. Hindalco (down Rs 38 or 3.69% to Rs 992), HDFC Bank (down Rs 13 or 3.39% to Rs 372), ICICI Bank (down Rs 17 or 5.71% to Rs 283) and ONGC (down Rs 18 or 2.15% to Rs 827) ended with steep losses. Bharti came off from its intra-day lows to end 4.64% lower (down Rs 7) at Rs 151.

Tisco dropped 7.51% (Rs 25) to Rs 307. Tata Power slumped 7.28% (Rs 27) to Rs 346.

Dr. Reddy's declined 4.57% (Rs 40) to Rs 840. While Ranbaxy slipped 2.65% (Rs 27) to Rs 1,000, Cipla also ended at lower levels.