Next leader has clear path to form new government
NEW DELHI — Thousands of people welcomed India’s next prime minister in the capital yesterday after he led his party to a resounding election victory. Narendra Modi flashed a victory sign to his cheering supporters and told them that the win “created a new confidence among people.”
Results announced Friday from the weeks-long polls showed that Modi and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party had won the most-decisive election victory India has seen in three decades, sweeping the long-dominant Congress party from power.
Yesterday, Modi was greeted by roaring crowds outside his headquarters in the heart of New Delhi, where he met with the party’s leadership to discuss forming a new government.
Modi pulled off a mandate of staggering proportions, leaving him unfettered to pursue an agenda of economic revival and development.
What remains to be seen is how quickly Modi, who has ruled the western state of Gujarat since 2001, can match the enormous expectations he has created in an electorate that is hungry for change.
For most of the past two years, Modi, 63, has worked relentlessly to market himself as the one leader capable of waking this nation of 1.2 billion from its economic slumber, while trying to shake off allegations that he looked the other way amid communal riots in his home state in 2002 that killed 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.
Yesterday, as thousands of people cheered and danced in welcome, it was clear that Modi had managed to win the confidence of many Indians.
Modi and the BJP wiped out a Congress party that had dominated Indian politics for all but a decade since the country gained freedom from British rule in 1947.
The final tally showed that the BJP had won 282 seats and Congress just 44 in the 543-strong Lok Sabha, or lower house of Parliament — meaning Modi will be able to form a government without the support of smaller parties.
The last time any single party won a majority in India was in 1984, when the Congress party swept more than 400 seats after the assassination of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Modi’s foreign policy is likely to focus heavily on trade and investment, which he has said the current government ignored. But overall, it’s unlikely to be dramatically different from his predecessors’, including relationships with key nations such as the United States and China.