Modi magic: Why Indian exit polls predict a record BJP victory | India Elections 2024 News

New Delhi, India – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, 73, appears set to run for a rare third term and is expected to be re-elected with a large majority, exit polls showed Saturday evening, hammering the opposition alliance in the most largest democratic vote ever organized in the world.

If the official results expected on Tuesday June 4 confirm these polls, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will not only emerge unscathed from worsening inequality, record unemployment and rising prices, but it could also ‘come out better than the last elections in 2019. Never before has any Prime Minister of independent India won three consecutive elections to the Lok Sabha with improved numbers each time.

At least seven exit polls published by Indian media predict that the BJP and its allies would win between 350 and 380 seats in the 543 Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian parliament.

Refusing to reflect on the election results at the exit polls, the opposition INDIA alliance – a group of more than two dozen political groups hoping to topple the Hindu majority BJP government – ​​maintained stoic confidence in its ability to win the majority on the day of counting.

In India, exit poll results are patchy and past surveys have both underestimated and overestimated the number of different parties. However, they mostly correctly predicted the broader trends of the past two decades, with a few exceptions. Nearly a billion Indians were registered to vote in the giant seven-phase elections that spanned six weeks and ended Saturday evening.

“Modi is extremely popular. Everything about this BJP campaign was about Modi for a reason,” said Neelanjan Sircar, a senior researcher at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research (CPR). “Some stories emerged suggesting people were angry at the government, but translating that into seats was always going to be difficult. »

BJP expands into new areas

Although opposition bloc INDIA is expected to do well in the country’s southern states, most exit polls suggest the BJP could make surprising inroads there too.

Several exit polls predict that the BJP could win 2 to 3 seats in Kerala, the last bastion of the Indian left where Modi’s party has never won; while the BJP could win 1-3 seats in Tamil Nadu, where it failed in the last elections. These victories, if they materialize, could give the BJP a foothold in the opposition strongholds where it has struggled for decades.

The BJP and its allies are also expected to retain their seats in Karnataka: the BJP won 25 of the 28 seats in the state in 2019. And it could emerge as the biggest winner in Telangana. The results would represent a dramatic setback for the opposition Congress party, which leads the INDIA alliance and won state legislative elections – defeating the BJP – in Karnataka and Telangana only last year.

“The gains in the south are surprising. And the forecasts suggest a massive gain,” said Asim Ali, a political commentator. “Even if the BJP doesn’t get as many seats (as the exit polls predicted), the increase in its vote share is a big change.”

Meanwhile, the BJP is expected to invade its stronghold states including Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

The opposition alliance is expected to make marginal gains in Bihar and Rajasthan, two states the BJP had almost won in the last elections, as well as the northern states of Haryana and Punjab.

Sudha Joshi, a 76-year-old voter from Chittorgarh, Rajasthan, didn’t take her eyes off her smartphone as news anchors shouted at each other about a “thunderous mandate” for Modi on Saturday night. She got the smartphone last year under a welfare program run by the then Congress government.

Last December, Rajasthan rejected the Congress and brought the BJP back to power in the state.

Joshi’s political allegiances also changed. Born in 1947, when India gained independence, Joshi never missed an opportunity to vote, she said. A traditional Congress vote-getter, Joshi said she had lost hope in the Nehru-Gandhi family that dominates the party and had instead come to see a leader in Modi.

“In 2014, when Modi first ran, I saw a leader who would propel India to international heights,” she said, exalting the exit poll results. “We are satisfied with his governance because he is a religious person like us, a true patriot.”

His views reflect broader sentiment, analysts say.

“A lot of society, with a guy like Modi at the top – someone you can believe in – can only imagine him as a leader today,” said CPR’s Sircar. “The BJP owes its success to Modi’s popularity.”

Zafar Islam, national spokesperson for the BJP, said exit polls show that voters “appreciated the BJP’s governance model, social programs and the vision of Prime Minister Modi.”

“The comfort of life has improved for people under Modi’s leadership and that is why we are looking forward to a historic verdict,” he told Al Jazeera.

Five more years of BJP domination?

Modi’s re-election campaign was punctuated by fear-mongering, in which he and the BJP continually presented the prime minister as a savior of the Hindu population at large against an opposition conspiracy to benefit Muslims, whom he called “infiltrators” and “those with more children” at campaign rallies.

With an estimated population of 200 million, India is home to the third largest Muslim community in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan.

The opposition, for its part, tried to corner Modi on issues of social justice and equality. This theme struck a chord with Vikrant Singh, a 21-year-old political science student.

Singh traveled more than 160 km (100 miles) to his home in Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh, to vote against the BJP, he said. “Public universities are becoming expensive and unemployment is skyrocketing,” he said. “I’m almost graduated and I don’t have any job prospects to look forward to.”

He is voting for the first time, and for Indians his age, the old Congress government – ​​the party was last in power between 2004 and 2014 – is now a distant memory. And the future, he says, doesn’t look bright.

“The BJP’s main focus has been on winning elections rather than focusing on governance,” he said. “They aim for cultural hegemony and capture young minds by controlling the media.”

In Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, the BJP is expected to win more than 65 out of 80 seats with its allies, up from 62 in the last election. After exit poll results were released, Modi said the opposition alliance “failed to reach out to voters.”

“Throughout the campaign, they only improved their expertise on one thing: Modi bashing. Such a regressive policy was rejected by the people,” he wrote on X.

If the election results confirm the exit poll results, Sircar noted that India is looking at five more years “under the centralized coalition of Modi and Amit Shah,” referring to the country’s interior minister, who is widely seen as the prime minister’s deputy.

“This BJP only knows this way of functioning: a government where power is entirely centralized at the top. »