*NEW DELHI – Voting ended Sunday in India’s most acrimonious election indecades that will decide whether Hindu nationalist Prime Minister NarendraModi gets a second term in power.*
As the final polling booths closed, a huge security cordon was thrownaround the voting machines and boxes of paper votes used in the 542 seatsfor the world’s biggest election before the official count starts onThursday.
Tens of thousands of police and paramilitaries on duty in West Bengal statewere a symbol of the mounting tensions between Modi’s right wing BharatiyaJanata Party and the opposition during the six weeks of voting.
Long queues formed outside polling stations in the eastern state but theBJP and its rivals again accused each other of using violence, fraud andintimidation.
An improvised bomb was thrown at one Kolkata polling station and securityforces intervened to stop BJP, communist and other groups blockingdifferent booths across the state capital that was hit by two days ofstreet battles last week.
Modi’s constituency in Varanasi, the holy city in Uttar Pradesh state, wasalso among those to vote.
Conjoined twins Sabah and Farah twins voted in the Bihar capital of Patnaand 102 year old Shyam Saran Negi, who has taken part in every Indian votesince independence in 1947, cast his ballot in mountainous Himachal Pradeshstate, highlighting the huge diversity of the exercise.
But most attention has focused on the BJP campaign to project Modi’sstrongman image, playing up recent cross-border air strikes againstPakistan.
The opposition, led by the Congress party and its leader Rahul Gandhi, haveaccused him of pursuing divisive policies, neglecting the economy andleaving many farmers in ruin.
Modi and Gandhi have hurled insults at each other on a near daily basiswith the prime minister calling his rival a “fool” while Gandhi deridesModi as a “thief”.
*Jaded voters*
The animosity has taken a toll on voters.
“All the abuse and misconduct claims suggest that standards in Indianpolitics have slipped badly,” Asit Banerjee, a history teacher in Kolkata,said as he queued to vote.
“Endless mudslinging and bitter comments pervaded the campaign. We arelosing hope in a democracy, it is time for a reset,” the 60-year-old toldAFP.
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Writing in the Hindustan Times, political commentator Karan Thapar saidModi’s message “played on our insecurities and strummed upon our deep innerfears”. He also criticised Gandhi’s campaign.
Pollsters say Modi remains personally popular but his party’s overallmajority is at risk from a backlash against the government.
The 68-year-old Modi has held 142 rallies across India during the campaign,sometimes five a day, but pollsters say the BJP could lose dozens of the282 seats it won in its 2014 landslide.
*$7 billion vote *
On Saturday Modi, dressed in a long robe and saffron sash, trekked to aHimalayan shrine to meditate, with images showing him seated on a bedinside a holy cave in the country’s north.
Hoping to become the fourth member of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to lead India,Rahul Gandhi has struggled to make himself heard above the din of the BJP’scampaign juggernaut.
The Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies estimates that the outlay on thiselection could top $7 billion, making it one of the priciest contestsglobally — with the lion’s share of the spending by the BJP trying to wooIndia’s 900 million eligible voters.
Lots of it has been spent on social media, with the parties using armies of“cyber warriors” to bombard India’s hundreds of millions of Facebook andWhatsApp users with messages.
Fake news and doctored images have abounded, including of Gandhi and Modihaving lunch with Imran Khan, prime minister of arch rival Pakistan, or ofa drunk Priyanka Gandhi, a politician and the sister of Rahul.
Violence has also broken out. Maoist rebels killed 15 troops and theirdriver in the western state of Maharashtra on May 1, the latest attack in adecades-long insurgency.
Gandhi, 48, has tried several lines of attack against Modi, in particularover alleged corruption in a French defence deal and over the plight offarmers and on the economy.
Modi’s government has fallen short on creating jobs for the million Indiansentering the labour market every month, the shock introduction of a cashban in 2016, while Indian banks are struggling with huge bad debts. -APP/AFP
