India (Brussels Morning Newspaper) As Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought a third straight term riding on a wave of Hindu reawakening, the opposition leadership crisis and his assertive governance of the past one decade, Indians began voting on Friday for a 44-day-long election process to elect a new parliament (Lok Sabha or the lower house) in June.
Millions of voters stood in queues across the country to cast their ballots in the world’s biggest democratic exercise spread over seven phases from April 19 to June 1.
Key Factors Influencing the Vote in India Election 2024
The vote is seen as a referendum on Modi’s policies on Hindu pride, jobs and economy, foreign relations, vaccination during the pandemic and the handling of the Kashmir insurgency by unleashing a spate of developmental projects in the region after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution that had granted a special status to the Muslim-majority former state of Jammu and Kashmir bordering India’s hostile neighbour Pakistan.
A Hindu reawakening through the construction of the God-king Ram’s temple in India’s heartland state Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya, where a mosque stood since the Mughal ruler’s demolition of a temple, is seen as a fulfilmment of a promise of many decades to build a temple to Lord Ram in his birthplace.
While Ram Temple is one of the major poll planks of Modi to woo the majority Hindu votes, he has been accused of using federal agencies to suppress the political rivals by initiating corruption raids on the opposition leaders and jailing some of them.
Riding on a performing economy and massive infrastructural development reflected in shiny national highways, new airports and railway stations and trains, Modi, under whose rule the Indian economy has jumped five places to emerge as the fifth largest economy of the world, has promised to take it to the third position if elected to power.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which is seen as favourities in the elections, is being challenged by the newly formed opposition bloc called I.N.D.I.A (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance), which since its formation to what it called “save democracy from the clutches of right-wing BJP” has been struggling to put up a united front or arrive at any seat sharing compromise.
Gandhi dynasty scion Rahul Gandhi led Indian National Congress (INC) is one of the key parties in the I.N. D. I. A bloc.
The voting started at 7 a.m. in the various regions of 21 states among India’s total 28 states and eight Union territories.
According to the Election Commision of India, of the 102 of the total 543 seats that went to polls on Friday, till 6 pm over 60 percent balloting was recorded. The final figure is yet to arrive from the Election Commission. A total of 166 million people are eligible to vote in this phase.
The election was by and large peaceful barring a few incidents in the eastern state of West Bengal, known for political violence on poll days, and the northeastern state of Manipur, which was roiled by a deadly ethnic unrest last year, said reports.
The highest voter turnout was reported from states like Tripura (79 percent) West Bengal (77.5 percent) and Manipur (68 percent), according to Election Commission sources till evening.
While the ruling BJP, which was enthused by the grand, historic opening of Ram Temple in Ayodhya, claimed it would bag over 400 of the 543 seats, opinion polls predicting a convincing win for Modi gave him less than that.
The ABP-CVoter opinion poll, the last one before the polls, has projected a total vote share of 46.6 percent for the BJP-led NDA, with the saffron party (ruling BJP) likely to win 40.2 percent of the votes. This translates into winning 373 out of the total 543 seats, a rise of 20 seats since the last Lok Sabha polls of 2019, and comfortably beyond the majority mark of 272, according to the survey.
The survey report was released on Tuesday (Apr 16) ahead of the first phase of the elections on April 19.
The opinion poll predicted that I.N.D.I.A bloc could follow close behind with a vote share of 39.8 percent, but the Indian National Congress (INC) is unlikely to poll more than 19.2 percent votes on its own.
The votes will be counted on June 4.
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