Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
party said Monday that exit 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 over
the six weeks of voting, the election commission said.

While the country faces a nerve-jangling three day wait until the official
count begins, media polls after Sunday’s final round said Modi’s Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) and its allies would secure enough seats to form a new
government.

Modi, who fought an acrimonious campaign framed around his tough stance on
national security, and other top BJP leaders made no immediate claim of
victory.

As the vote drew to a close, the nationalist leader spent the weekend at a
retreat in the Himalayas. He posted a Twitter picture of himself in a Hindu
saffron robe looking out over the mountains.

Party spokesman G.V.L. Narasimha Rao said the polls “clearly show a huge
positive vote for the leadership of Narendra Modi who has served the country
with unmatched dedication.

“That people reward good performance has once again been proved by the
overwhelming public mandate. This is a slap for the abusive opposition that
made baseless charges and spoke lies,” he added.

The BJP was not expected to match its landslide tally in 2014, which gave
it enough seats to govern in its own right, but leading polls projected the
ruling party and its allies winning between 282 and 313 seats of the 543
candidates 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 44
seats — a historic low since India’s independence in 1947 — but still fall
far short of a claim to governing. The party has pointed to the unreliability
of polls in previous elections.

After seven rounds of voting spread over six weeks, a huge security cordon
was thrown around electronic voting machines and boxes of paper ballots used
for the world’s biggest election before the official count starts on
Thursday.

The opposition had led an onslaught on Modi’s handling of the economy and
failure to create jobs during the campaign.

But the vote increasingly became a personal referendum on one of India’s
most popular and divisive prime ministers ever.

The 68-year-old leader went to scores of rallies across the country to
fire up his Hindu base and turn the campaign into a debate on national
security following tit-for-tat air raids with Pakistan in March.

Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi traded insults throughout the
campaign.

Gandhi, 48, attacked Modi over alleged corruption in a French defence deal
and the plight of farmers, as well as on the economy.

Modi’s government has fallen short on creating jobs for the million
Indians entering the labour market every month, while the shock introduction
of a sudden ban on high-denomination cash in 2016 disrupted business and
Indian banks 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 Bengal
state on Sunday where the BJP has made a push against the regional Trinamool
Congress party.

An improvised bomb was thrown at one Kolkata polling station and security
forces intervened to stop supporters of the BJP, communists and other parties
from blockading voting booths across the state capital.

In Madhya Pradesh state, in central India, a BJP worker was allegedly shot
dead by a Congress official in Indore, police told media.

The Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies estimates that parties have spent
more than $7 billion on the election, making it one of the most expensive
campaigns held in the world.

Much of the cash was spent on social media, where the parties used armies
of “cyber warriors” to bombard India’s Facebook and WhatsApp users with
messages.

Fake news and doctored images abounded, including of Gandhi and Modi
having lunch with Imran Khan, prime minister of arch-rival Pakistan, as well
as an image purporting to show Rahul’s sister Priyanka intoxicated.

BSS/AFP