Indian election resumes as heatwave hits voters
MATHURA, India: India’s sixweek-long election resumed yesterday with millions of people lining up outside polling stations in parts of the country hit by a scorching heatwave.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is widely expected to win a third term in the election, which concludes in early June.
But turnout in the first round of voting last week dropped nearly four points to 66 per cent from the previous election in 2019, with speculation in Indian media outlets that higher-thanaverage temperatures were to blame.
Modi took to social media shortly before polls re-opened to urge those voting to turn out in ‘record numbers’ despite the heat.
“A high voter turnout strengthens our democracy,” he wrote on social media platform X.
“Your vote is your voice!” The second round of the poll - conducted in phases to ease the immense logistical burden of staging an election in the world’s most populous country includes districts that have this week seen temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius.
India’s weather bureau said Thursday that severe heatwave conditions would continue in several states through the weekend.
That includes parts of the eastern state of Bihar, where five districts are voting yesterday and where temperatures more than 5.1 degrees Celsius above the seasonal average were recorded this week.
Karnataka state in the south and parts of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and heartland of the Hindu faith, are also scheduled to vote while facing heatwave conditions.
“Voter turnout we typically expect in the early hours is quite low this time around,” polling officer Shyam Sundar Bharti told AFP in Mathura, a city not far from the Taj Mahal where temperatures were expected to hit 41 degrees Celsius.
“The heat is the reason,” he said.
Analysts have long expected Modi to triumph convincingly in this year’s vote, an assessment outwardly shared by his ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Political analyst and Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay said that perceptions of the vote as a foregone conclusion may have dampened voter enthusiasm.
“There is some disinterest among some BJP voters,” he told AFP, “because when they hear the leadership say ‘we will get 400 seats’ they think, why slug it out in the heat?”
India’s election commission said this week it had formed a task force to review the impact of heatwaves and humidity before each round of voting.
The commission said in a statement it had ‘no major concern’ about the impact of hot temperatures on Friday’s vote.
But it added that it had been closely monitoring weather reports and would ensure “the comfort and well-being of voters along with polling personnel”.
A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted South and Southeast Asia, prompting thousands of schools across the Philippines and Bangladesh to suspend in-person classes.
The heat disrupted campaigning in India on Wednesday when roads minister Nitin Gadkari fainted at a rally for Modi’s party in Maharashtra state.
Footage of the speech showed Gadkari falling unconscious and being carried off the stage by handlers. He later blamed the incident on discomfort ‘due to the heat’.
Years of scientific research have found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense. — AFP