Delhi, 4 June 2024, (GNP): Prime Minister Narendra Modi is anticipated to secure a third term in India’s election, as vote counting began on Tuesday with results expected to be announced soon.
Exit polls indicate that Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is poised for victory following a six-week election period, during which 642 million people voted in seven stages in the world’s most populous country.
Modi expressed confidence over the weekend, stating that “the people of India have voted in record numbers” to re-elect his government, a decade after he first became prime minister.
Analysts believe his appeals to rising Hindu nationalist sentiment will secure him a third term.
Modi’s opponents have struggled to counter the powerful campaign of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), facing internal conflicts and alleging politically motivated criminal cases designed to hinder challengers.
US think tank Freedom House reported this year that the BJP has “increasingly used government institutions to target political opponents.”
On Sunday, Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s chief minister and a prominent leader of an alliance opposing Modi, was sent back to jail. Kejriwal, 55, had been detained in March over a long-running corruption investigation but was released to campaign, with the condition he return to custody once voting concluded.
“When power becomes dictatorship, then jail becomes a responsibility,” Kejriwal said before surrendering himself, vowing to continue “fighting” from behind bars.
In the lead-up to the election, the more than 200 million Muslim minority grew increasingly uneasy about their future and their community’s place in the nominally secular country.
During the campaign, Modi made several strong remarks about Muslims, referring to them as “infiltrators.”
Logistics of Vote Counting
The election was immense in scale and logistical complexity, with voters casting ballots in megacities like New Delhi and Mumbai, as well as sparsely populated forest areas and the high-altitude region of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
Votes were cast on electronic voting machines, so the tally is expected to be swift, with results anticipated within hours.
Counting will start at 8:00 am (0230 GMT) in key centers in each state, with data fed into computers.
“People should know about the strength of Indian democracy,” Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said Monday, ensuring a “robust counting process is in place.”
In previous elections, key trends have emerged by mid-afternoon, with losers conceding defeat, although full and final results may only come late on Tuesday night.
Celebrations are expected at Modi’s BJP headquarters if the results align with exit poll predictions.
A simple majority of 272 seats is required to win, and the BJP secured 303 seats in the last election in 2019.
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Heatwave voting
Election chief Kumar declared on Monday that the 642 million votes cast set a “world record.”
However, with an electorate of 968 million, the turnout was 66.3%, a slight decrease from the 67.4% in the 2019 elections. Final voter data is pending as repolling took place at two stations in West Bengal state on Monday.
Analysts attribute the lower turnout partly to a severe heatwave across northern India, where temperatures exceeded 45°C (113°F). In Uttar Pradesh state alone, at least 33 polling staff died from heatstroke on Saturday, with temperatures reaching 46.9°C (116.4°F).
Kumar acknowledged that polling should have ended a month earlier, stating, “We should not have done it in so much heat.”
