Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a public meeting at Jerenga Pathar in Sivasagar district of the Indian state of Assam on January 23, 2021.
Biju Boro | AFP | Getty Images
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks set to seek a rare third consecutive term in power, as local exit polls on Saturday suggest his Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance will secure a parliamentary majority.
According to a summary of exit polls by local news channel NDTV, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is expected to win around 365 of the 543 seats in the lower house of Parliament. The party or coalition that wins at least 272 votes will form the government. The final results, expected Tuesday, could deviate from the projections at the exit of the polls.
If the uneven exit poll results are confirmed, Modi will serve another five years as the country’s prime minister – a position he has held since 2014.
Voting in India, the world’s largest democratic election poll of nearly a billion eligible voters, took place in seven phases over the past six weeks and began on April 19. There are a total of 543 seats contested in the lower house, and the party or coalition that wins at least 272 votes will form the government.
Under Modi’s ten-year rule, India experienced robust economic growth and an improved global reputation. Home to 1.4 billion people, India has one of the fastest growing economies in the world, growing at 7.2% in the financial year 2022-2023, reaching the second highest rate of highest growth among G20 countries. The International Monetary Fund projects that India’s economy will grow by 6.8% in 2024 and 6.5% in 2025, compared to China’s forecast growth of 5% in 2024 and 4.5% in 2025.
Some economists are even more optimistic. “The bigger you grow, the harder it becomes to maintain a very high level of growth, but I think 7-7.5% growth is possible,” said Sujan Hajra, chief economist at Anand Rathi Share and Stock Brokers, at CNBC. adding that improving infrastructure will be a big priority to boost growth.
“Soft infrastructure, such as improving the country’s healthcare network, will receive much greater attention this time than hard infrastructure, as a lot of work has already been done in this area,” he said. Harja said.
In the BJP’s manifesto for the next term, Modi promised that his government would propel India to become one of the world’s top three economies, actively fight poverty, open new avenues of growth and fight corruption.
Despite world leaders’ optimism about India’s growth trajectory under Modi’s rule, observers and critics have warned that the prime minister’s third term could bring more signs of democratic backsliding. He was also accused of hate speech for calling Muslims “infiltrators” at a rally days after voting began. Religious division in India remained a hot topic during the elections, as did unemployment.
According to a survey conducted by the Center for the Study of Developing Societies, unemployment was the main concern of 27% of the 10,000 people surveyed. More than half (62%) of respondents also said it had become more difficult to find a job in the last five years of Modi’s second term.
Modi reportedly said in March that he was confident the BJP and the broader National Democratic Alliance would get a combined 400 seats, but analysts say that will matter less as long as it is close to the 303 seats it he dropped out in 2019.
“The outlook will remain very positive for the Indian stock market as we have seen the kind of progress and efficiency it has been able to bring from a governance perspective since 2019 with 303 seats,” said Malcolm Dorson, manager of senior portfolio. and Head of Emerging Markets Strategy at Global X ETFs.
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News Source : www.cnbc.com
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