NEW DELHI – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party said Monday thatexit polls from the country’s marathon election showed an “overwhelming”vote in favour of a second term for the Hindu nationalist leader.
About 65 percent of India’s 900 million-strong electorate turned out overthe six weeks of voting, the election commission said.
While the country faces a nerve-jangling three day wait until the officialcount begins, media polls after Sunday’s final round said Modi’s BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP) and its allies would secure enough seats to form a newgovernment.
Modi, who fought an acrimonious campaign framed around his tough stance onnational security, and other top BJP leaders made no immediate claim ofvictory.
As the vote drew to a close, the nationalist leader spent the weekend at aretreat in the Himalayas. He posted a Twitter picture of himself in a Hindusaffron robe looking out over the mountains.
Party spokesman G.V.L. Narasimha Rao said the polls “clearly show a hugepositive vote for the leadership of Narendra Modi who has served thecountry with unmatched dedication.
“That people reward good performance has once again been proved by theoverwhelming public mandate. This is a slap for the abusive opposition thatmade baseless charges and spoke lies,” he added.
The BJP was not expected to match its landslide tally in 2014, which gaveit enough seats to govern in its own right, but leading polls projected theruling party and its allies winning between 282 and 313 seats of the 543candidates elected to India’s lower house.
Modi’s alliance had 336 seats in the outgoing parliament.
– Modi referendum –
The opposition Congress party was predicted to double its 2014 tally of 44seats — a historic low since India’s independence in 1947 — but stillfall far short of a claim to governing. The party has pointed to theunreliability of polls in previous elections.
After seven rounds of voting spread over six weeks, a huge security cordonwas thrown around electronic voting machines and boxes of paper ballotsused for the world’s biggest election before the official count starts onThursday.
The opposition had led an onslaught on Modi’s handling of the economy andfailure to create jobs during the campaign.
But the vote increasingly became a personal referendum on one of India’smost popular and divisive prime ministers ever.
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The 68-year-old leader went to scores of rallies across the country to fireup his Hindu base and turn the campaign into a debate on national securityfollowing tit-for-tat air raids with Pakistan in March.
Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi traded insults throughout thecampaign.
Gandhi, 48, attacked Modi over alleged corruption in a French defence dealand the plight of farmers, as well as on the economy.
Modi’s government has fallen short on creating jobs for the million Indiansentering the labour market every month, while the shock introduction of asudden ban on high-denomination cash in 2016 disrupted business and Indianbanks are struggling with huge bad debts.
Hostilities spilled over again on the final day of voting.
Tens of thousands of security forces guarded polling booths in West Bengalstate on Sunday where the BJP has made a push against the regionalTrinamool Congress party.
An improvised bomb was thrown at one Kolkata polling station and securityforces intervened to stop supporters of the BJP, communists and otherparties from blockading voting booths across the state capital.
In Madhya Pradesh state, in central India, a BJP worker was allegedly shotdead by a Congress official in Indore, police told media.
The Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies estimates that parties have spentmore than $7 billion on the election, making it one of the most expensivecampaigns held in the world.
Much of the cash was spent on social media, where the parties used armiesof “cyber warriors” to bombard India’s Facebook and WhatsApp users withmessages.
Fake news and doctored images abounded, including of Gandhi and Modi havinglunch with Imran Khan, prime minister of arch-rival Pakistan, as well as animage purporting to show Rahul’s sister Priyanka intoxicated. -APP/AFP
