Modi claims his third victory in India but does not achieve a landslide victory

Nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed this Tuesday the victory that will ensure him a third term at the head of Indiaalthough its parliamentary majority was reduced and it did not achieve the resounding victory that the polls predicted.

“He town put his trust in the NDA [Alianza Democrática Nacional, por sus siglas en inglés] for the third time in a row”Modi declared on social network X, referring to his coalition. “It is a historical fact in India”, he highlighted.

Both analysts and exit polls predicted a comfortable victory for Modi and his party, but everything indicates that the leader’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJPIndian People’s Party), and its allies will not achieve that overwhelming result and will have to rely on their alliance partners, according to figures from the electoral commission.

With nearly 99% of the votes counted, the BJP obtains 36.7% of the votes, somewhat below the last elections in 2019.

Modi He was re-elected in his constituency, the sacred city of Hinduism Varanasi, also known as Benares. It is the third time he has won and this time he obtained 152,000 more votes than the second candidate.

In total, the BJP wins 239 seats and its allies another 52, which places it with 291, above the absolute majority of 272 deputies in the chamber of 543 seats.

The main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, (which anointed Nehru, the post-independence prime minister, and Indira Gandhi), appears on track to almost double its number of seats with 99 legislators, compared to 52 in the outgoing Parliament.

“Punished”

“Voters punished BJP”said Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who was re-elected in his Wayanad constituency in the south. ““I was sure that the people of this country were going to give a good response.”

After a decade promoting his Hindu nationalist agenda, Modi, 73, is heading for a third term in this emerging power that is a member of the BRICS along with Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa. And this, despite accusations from the opposition and concerns about the rights of religious minorities.

A total of 642 million people participated in these elections divided into seven phases over six weeks, faced with the logistical challenge of organizing elections in the most populous nation in the world, with 1.4 billion inhabitants.

It is estimated that more than two-thirds of the Indian population belong to the lowest castes of the ancient system of social stratification into which Hindus are divided.

Politicians of all stripes courted the lower castes with social action programs, promises of employment and special subsidies to fight discrimination.

But Modi’s BJP distinguished itself from the rest, imposing itself with a different discourse: think first about your religion and then about your caste.

Opposition pressured

The prime minister’s opponents improved their electoral numbers despite having to face legal proceedings that they denounce as part of Modi’s political campaign against dissent.

The American think tank Freedom House indicated that this year the BJP ““he increasingly used government institutions to attack his political rivals.”

As an example, opponents cite the case of Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of the capital, New Delhi, arrested in March in a corruption case, released in May for the election campaign and imprisoned again on Sunday.

The prime minister’s policy also arouses misgivings among the Muslim religious minority, with more than 200 million faithful, concerned about their future in this constitutionally secular country that was a British colony until 1947.

The elections represented a logistical challenge in this huge country, with countless polling stations in megacities such as New Delhi and Bombay, but also in isolated forest areas and in the conflictive region of Kashmir, at the foot of the Himalayas.

To facilitate the recount, electronic voting machines were used.

The main Indian television networks have reporters in front of each center who compete to announce the results as soon as possible.

Although the head of the electoral commission held a “world record” of 642 million votes in the elections, with a participation of 66.3%.