Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a victory sign as he arrived at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters on Tuesday to celebrate the party’s victory in the New Delhi election.
Arun Sankar/AFP via Getty Images
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Arun Sankar/AFP via Getty Images
NEW DELHI — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared victory in an election with his alliance winning more than half the seats in parliament, with votes still being counted.
That puts Modi on track for a third consecutive term, becoming the country’s first prime minister in more than 60 years to do so.
This comes after a six-week election in which nearly 1 billion people were eligible to vote.
In a speech at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters in New Delhi, Modi said the National Democratic Alliance “will form the government for the third time and we thank the people”. “This is a victory for the world’s largest democracy.”
But the BJP’s celebrations seemed relatively muted.
Modi’s alliance has set an optimistic target of winning 400 of the 543 parliamentary seats. The party led with 288 seats as of 9pm local time, according to the Election Commission of India. India’s opposition alliance won 233 seats, despite exit polls predicting a much lower number.
Only a small crowd of supporters gathered at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters in New Delhi on Tuesday morning as early trends suggested the alliance would not achieve a landslide victory. Although some people loudly sang hymns to Prime Minister Modi in front of TV cameras, the atmosphere was relatively somber.
At the offices of the opposition Congress party, supporters cheered.
Meanwhile, Indian stocks plunged to four-year lows on news that the ruling coalition won by a narrower-than-expected margin, which could make it harder to pass legislation, Reuters reported.
When massive, seven-phase elections began in April, most analysts predicted a landslide victory for Modi and his allies.
At the time, Modi built a Hindu temple in Ayodhya over a mosque that had been razed to the ground by Hindu nationalists. The income tax department froze the Congress party’s bank accounts over unpaid dues; India’s top investigative agency filed corruption or money laundering charges against several opposition leaders.
While the BJP denies accusations of Modi’s authoritarianism, the campaign focuses on economic growth, welfare programs and India’s rise on the world stage. The party has failed to curb high inflation and unemployment for a decade in power, but some voters told NPR that Modi has risen above the government’s failures.
However, after the first round of voting in April, the ruling party’s rhetoric on religious lines became increasingly polarizing.
In a campaign speech, Modi accused the Congress party of conspiring to steal the wealth of the Hindu majority and distribute it to the Muslim minority, whom he called “invaders” and “people with more children.” After repeated complaints from opposition parties, the electoral commission said it would hold the party chairman accountable for illegal behavior by its star campaigner.
The opposition Indian Alliance – a coalition of more than two dozen parties led by the Congress Party – sees the election as a fight to save the country’s constitution. Congress and powerful regional parties helped the alliance secure more seats than expected despite the defection of a key partner ahead of the vote. A key victory came in bellwether Uttar Pradesh, where the opposition alliance led in nearly half the seats it lost to the BJP in 2019.
In his victory speech on Tuesday night, Modi began by paying homage to Hindu gods and reiterating his intention to make India a developed nation over the next two decades. He added that he would work with all state governments regardless of party affiliation.
Earlier in the evening, the opposition Congress party said the main opposition party had won seats despite the BJP “occupying” state institutions. Its leader Rahul Gandhi later produced a copy of India’s constitution and said the mandate was the “first step” in stopping Modi’s attempts to change the constitution.
“The main message from these elections is that the era of coalition politics is back and Modi’s model of one-party rule will no longer work,” said Professor Ashwini Kumar, a Mumbai-based political analyst. “This also means that the BJP will Controversial ideological issues such as a Uniform Civil Code or simultaneous elections to state assemblies and parliaments had to be put aside.”
Kapil Komireddy, author The Vicious Republic: A Brief History of the New Indiawarned that the BJP could “poach” elected MPs from other parties – “an art they have perfected”.
“If that happens, the prime minister can return to commanding a government with a majority in parliament,” he said. “The difference is that within his own party, everyone knows the magic has waned.”
Diaa Hadid contributed to this report.
