NATIONALIST INDIAN PEOPLE’S PARTY MARKS BIGGEST EVER POLL WIN; MODI LIKELY STAYS PM
NEW DELHI— Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party had a commanding lead as votes were counted on Thursday after a six-week general election.
Partial election data showed the Bharatiya Janata (Indian People’s) Party (BJP) leading in 300 out of 542 seats in the lower house of Parliament, with its main rival, the Indian National Congress, ahead in 50 contests.
Referendum on Modi
The election has been seen as a referendum on Modi, whose economic reforms have had mixed results but whose popularity as a social underdog in India’s highly stratified society has endured.
Critics have said his “Hindu First” platform risks exacerbating social tensions in the country of 1.3 billion people.
Half a dozen exit polls released after voting concluded on Sunday showed Modi and the BJP winning.
No need for coalition
A party or coalition needs a simple majority of 272 seats, or just over half the seats in Parliament’s lower house, to govern.
If BJP’s lead holds, it won’t need a coalition partner to stay in power.
“Mr. Modi’s going to be the next prime minister, we are very assured of that,” said Meenakshi Lekhi, a member of Parliament running for reelection in New Delhi.
Outside BJP headquarters in New Delhi, hundreds of people cheered and shouted party slogans, lifting cardboard cutouts of Modi and BJP president Amit Shah into the air as other people played drums and set off fireworks.
Mohit Sharma, a 29-year-old who runs a bathroom fittings business, said India had never had a prime minister like Modi.
“In the past, when leaders after they won elections, they sat in air-conditioned rooms and they never reached out to people, but Modi was never like that. He was always connected to the people through social media,” Sharma said.
Fashion designer Sandeep Verma, 39, said he wasn’t a BJP supporter but had voted for the party in the elections.
“A country like India needs a decisive leader and the people did not find that in Rahul Gandhi [of the opposition Indian National Congress]. There was no alternative to Modi,” Verma said.
Social media campaign
The BJP harnessed social media, including Twitter, where Modi has 47.4 million followers, and WhatsApp to reach out to millions of supporters.
Meanwhile, at Congress headquarters, only a fewpartyworkers stood outside looking dejected.
Jagdish Sharma, 50, blamed the counting method, using electronic voting machines (EVM), saying “Rahul Gandhi is the crowd’s favorite, but has always lost only due to EVMs. While EVMs exist even Lord Vishnu can’t defeat Modi,” he said, referring to a powerful Hindu god.
Claims of fraud
Opposition leaders met with Election Commission officials on Tuesday after videos appeared on social media showing some electronic voting machines being moved.
The party officials alleged that the machines were going to be altered, but the commission said the images showed unused machines being stored.