Voting in India’s general election, a six-week referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade in power, ended Saturday as much of the country’s populous north was gripped by a deadly heatwave.
The results will be tallied and announced on Tuesday.
Mr. Modi, whose power is deeply entrenched, is seen as likely to win a third consecutive term as prime minister, which would make him only the second leader in India’s nearly 75 years of republicanism to achieve that feat. Exit polls released after the final round of voting suggest a comfortable comeback for his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP.
A newly united opposition fought back, rallying against Mr. Modi’s divisive politics and his handling of India’s deeply uneven economic growth. But exit polls indicated that Mr. Modi’s party was struggling to significantly reduce the large majority of the 543 seats in Parliament held by Mr. Modi’s party.
In a message of thanks after the close of voting, Mr. Modi said he was convinced that “the people of India voted in record numbers to re-elect” their government. But Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the largest opposition party, the Indian National Congress, downplayed the exit poll results as “government investigations” and said official results would show his alliance was ahead.
The election, which took place in stages over a month and a half, is the world’s largest democratic exercise, with more than 950 million eligible voters. The latter part of the campaign saw large rallies even as northern India was subjected to an intense heatwave, with temperatures frequently exceeding 110 degrees Fahrenheit, or more than 43 degrees Celsius.
At least 19 poll workers have died from heatstroke or other health complications resulting from the heat in recent days.
In a parliamentary system like India’s, elections are generally held on a seat-by-seat basis, with the candidate’s fate determined by local economic and social factors. But the BJP has turned its parliamentary campaign into a presidential-style referendum, putting the focus almost entirely on Mr. Modi and his leadership. The party hoped Mr Modi’s high popularity would help it overcome growing anti-presidential sentiment after ten years of BJP rule.
Mr. Modi held about 200 rallies across the country during more than two months of campaigning, hoping to lift up his party’s struggling candidates. He also embarked on a media blitz, giving around 80 interviews to television stations and newspapers, almost all of them favorable to him.
As the campaign ended and a mandatory two-day election break was about to begin, Mr. Modi retreated south to the memorial of one of India’s most famous monks , for two days of meditation. The country’s media followed. The stream of videos and photos released by his office, taken from multiple angles in a location where photography is generally prohibited, dominated the nightly news and television talk shows.
Mr Modi’s opponents cried foul, saying the exercise amounted to a banned campaign – and that it illustrated the uneven playing field he had created.
“The weather is beautiful. The Prime Minister is sitting there in meditation and he has softened the sun goddess,” Ravi Kishan, actor and BJP candidate, told local media. “It is historic: in the middle of a heat intense, the wind started to blow today.”
The opposition, paralyzed by arrests and other punitive actions amid a crackdown, nevertheless assembled its most united front in years. Opposition leaders have portrayed Mr. Modi as a friend of billionaires who have struggled to create jobs for the country’s large young population. They called his party elitist, accusing it of failing to promote those at the middle and lower ends of India’s caste system.
The opposition has stoked fears that if the BJP remains in power, it could amend the country’s Constitution to remove affirmative action in favor of middle and lower castes, a system put in place decades ago to combat centuries of oppression in the rigidly hierarchical Indian society.
Mr. Modi vehemently rejected the accusations as unfounded; the party under his leadership increased its outreach to the lower castes. To try to keep his Hindu support base united, he has turned to anti-Muslim rhetoric, launching unusually direct attacks for him in recent years.
The opposition also tried to win over voters by promising a long list of social measures, including the abolition of loans to farmers, cash transfers for women and paid apprenticeships for young people. Mr. Modi, by contrast, sticks to an image of fiscal prudence, content to highlight his existing offerings. According to members of his party, this is because he was confident in his ability to win a third term and did not want to promise too much.
But even as the opposition appears to be gaining ground, it faces a daunting task in ousting Mr. Modi’s government. He has built a huge electoral advantage thanks to a strong and well-funded political apparatus. In the last election, Mr. Modi’s party won 303 seats, almost six times as many as its closest domestic competitor, the Indian National Congress party.
Pragati KB contributed reporting from Kanniyakumari, India.
News Source : www.nytimes.com
Gn world
