VARANASI, India: India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi looked set to
win a third straight landslide election victory on Saturday (Jun 1) at the
close of a six-week general election bedevilled by searing heatwaves.
Results will be formally announced on Tuesday but Modi’s victory has
long been treated as a foregone conclusion by analysts, in large part
due to his aggressive championing of India’s majority faith.
Exit polls showed he was well on track to triumph and Modi himself was
certain he had prevailed, saying he was confident that “the people of
India have voted in record numbers” to re-elect his government.
“They have seen our track record and the manner in which our work has
brought about a qualitative change in the lives of the poor,
marginalised and downtrodden,” he said on social media platform X.
An exit poll from broadcaster CNN-News18 forecast Modi’s ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its coalition allies to win 355
seats, well above the 272 needed for a majority in the lower house.
However, such forecasts have proven unreliable in the past at
capturing public sentiment in a country with nearly a billion eligible
voters.
Many in Modi’s constituency of Varanasi who cast their votes on
Saturday were nonetheless excited at the prospect of his return to
power.
“I voted for growth and development of my country,” Varanasi resident
Brijesh Taksali told AFP outside a polling station where he cast his
ballot to re-elect the 73-year-old premier.
Varanasi is the spiritual capital of the Hindu faith, where devotees
from around India come to cremate deceased loved ones by the Ganges
river.
It was one of the final cities to vote in India’s long election, and
where public support for Modi’s ever-closer alignment of religion and
politics burns brightest.
“POLITICS OF TEMPLE”
Earlier this year, Modi presided over the inauguration of a grand temple to the deity Ram, built on the grounds of a centuries-old mosque in Ayodhya razed by Hindu zealots in 1992.
Construction of the temple fulfilled a long-standing demand of Hindu activists and was widely celebrated across the country with back-to-back television coverage and street parties.
The ceremony and numerous other chest-beating demonstrations of fidelity to India’s majority religion over the past decade have made many among the country’s 200 million-plus minority Muslim community increasingly uneasy about their futures.
Modi himself has made a number of strident comments about Muslims on the campaign trail, referring to them as “infiltrators”.
He has also accused the motley coalition of more than two dozen opposition parties contesting the poll against him of plotting to redistribute India’s wealth to its Muslim citizens.
Janesar Akhtar, a Muslim clothesmaker working in Varanasi’s famed embroidery workshops, told AFP that the BJP’s sectarian campaigning was an unfortunate distraction from India’s chronic unemployment problems.
“Workshops here are closing down and the Modi government has been busy with the politics of temples and mosques,” the 44-year-old said.
“He is supposed to give us jobs and not tensions.”
“A LOT MORE RESPECT”
Analysts have long expected Modi to triumph against the opposition alliance, which at no point has named an agreed candidate for prime minister.
His prospects have been further bolstered by several criminal probes into his opponents and a tax investigation this year that froze the bank accounts of Congress, India’s largest opposition party.
Western democracies have largely sidestepped concerns over human rights and democratic freedoms in the hopes of cultivating an ally that can help check the growing assertiveness of China, India’s northern neighbour and rival regional power.
Modi’s image at home has also been bolstered by India’s rising diplomatic and economic clout — the country overtook Britain as the world’s fifth-biggest economy in 2022.
“As an Indian, I feel that he has ensured a lot of respect and prestige for India during his term,” Shikha Aggarwal, 40, told AFP while waiting to cast her vote.
“People now look at India and Indians with a lot more respect, something not accorded earlier.”
“STAY HYDRATED”
India has voted in seven phases over six weeks to ease the immense logistical burden of staging an election in the world’s most populous country with just over 1.4 billion people.
Turnout is down several percentage points from the last national election in 2019, with analysts blaming widespread expectations of a Modi victory as well as successive heatwaves scorching India’s northern states.
Authorities in the eastern state of Bihar said on Friday that 10 poll workers had died of heatstroke the previous day while setting up for the vote.
Extensive scientific research shows climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense, with Asia warming faster than the global average.
A scorching sun bore down on Varanasi and its countless temples and riverside crematoriums during Saturday’s vote, with afternoon temperatures peaking at 45 degrees Celsius.
“The last few days have been very tough,” housewife Bindwasvini Devi, who voted soon after polls opened to beat the scorching temperatures.
“We’ve tried to stay hydrated and avoided going out as much as possible.”