India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has claimed a landslide victory in national elections that cements the Hindu nationalist leader as the country’s most formidable politician in decades. The emphatic victory has been greeted with dismay among some members of religious minority groups, who have voiced fears that a returned Bharatiya Janata party government would be further emboldened to prosecute its Hindu nationalist agenda
Continue reading...Category Archives: Narendra Modi
India election: Modi set for historic landslide victory
The hugely popular BJP Hindu nationalist leader brushes aside economic woes to claim another term
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is on track for a historic landslide election victory that would cement the Hindu nationalist leader as the country’s most formidable politician in decades.
Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) had been expected to easily win a majority in coalition with smaller parties, but official results after nearly three hours of counting showed the party ahead in at least 290 seats, enough to claim an outright victory. Its main national opponent, Congress, was leading in just over 50 seats.
Continue reading...Indian elections: Modi on track for decisive victory, exit polls suggest
Voting has officially ended in country’s marathon six-week ballot
India’s prime minister and his allies are on track to decisively win a second term, according to exit polls released after voting officially ended on Sunday night in the country’s marathon six-week elections.
Sampling by six pollsters showed Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) and its coalition winning between 287 and 336 seats. The final tally each survey predicted varied but were uniformly well above the 272 seats needed to form government in India’s lower house. Two surveys showed the ruling coalition falling short – by between five and 30 seats.
Continue reading...Praise for Gandhi assassin caps acrimonious Indian election campaign
PM admonishes candidates who lauded Mahatma Gandhi killer as a ‘patriot’
Campaigning in the most acrimonious election in recent Indian history has ended with an admonishment by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, of some of his hardline candidates for praising Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin.
A six-week campaign dominated by national security issues and increasingly brazen rhetoric came to a head this week after a candidate for Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh state said she believed Gandhi’s killer, Nathuram Godse, was “a patriot”. She later apologised. Three other BJP members also weighed in on Gandhi’s murder.
Continue reading...India elections: man chops off finger after voting for wrong party
Pawan Kumar had voted for Modi party in confusion over symbols on machine
A man has chopped off his index finger in desperation after voting for the wrong party in India’s general election.
Pawan Kumar became confused by the symbols on the electronic voting machine and voted for Narendra Modi’s party instead of its regional rival in Uttar Pradesh state on Thursday, his brother said.
Continue reading...India election 2019: marathon vote begins to decide Modi’s fate
Six weeks of voting begin with many viewing it as referendum on prime minister
The world’s largest ever election has started in India, with voters in 20 states casting their ballots in the first phase of a marathon six-week poll.
The contest in the vast country of 1.3 billion people is dominated by local issues but also viewed as a referendum on the prime minister, Narendra Modi, a staunch Hindu nationalist who rode a wave of popularity five years ago to become the first leader of a majority government in decades.
Continue reading...What’s at stake as India’s 900m voters head for the polls?
The world’s biggest democracy will this week begin the 40-day process of choosing a new government in which an eighth of the world’s population will have the vote
Consider what is involved: more than one-eighth of humanity will have the opportunity to vote in April and May. Those voters will speak 22 official languages and thousands of dialects. Tens of millions will never have learned to read. They will vote from the shadow of the Himalayas right down to the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago; in tribal communities without running water or electricity; in Delhi’s genteel southern neighbourhoods and in the teeming slums of Mumbai.
Continue reading...India to begin voting in election in April, says electoral commission
Up to 900 million voters to cast ballots, as PM Narendra Modi seeks to replicate 2014 victory
Voting in the world’s largest democratic contest will begin on 11 April and continue for the next six weeks, India’s electoral commission has said in an announcement that signals the formal start of campaigning.
Polling booths will be shuttled around the country – by camel across the Rajasthan desert, on foot in the Himalayas and by speedboat in the Andaman Islands – for an election held in seven phases ending on 19 May. The ballots of up to 900 million eligible voters will be counted four days later.
Continue reading...Pakistan to release Indian pilot captured in Kashmir attacks
Imran Khan says pilot to be freed as ‘peace gesture’ amid rising tensions between nuclear neighbours
Pakistan says it will release a captured Indian pilot as a “peace gesture” between the neighbours amid the gravest military crisis in the subcontinent in two decades.
Imran Khan, the country’s prime minister, told a joint sitting of parliament that the Indian wing commander, Abhinandan Varthaman, who was shot down over the heavily guarded ceasefire line in disputed Kashmir on Wednesday, would be released on Friday.
Continue reading...India’s airstrikes are more posturing than prelude to war
Neither Narendra Modi nor Imran Khan can afford a full-scale India-Pakistan conflict
India’s limited airstrikes across the “line of control” in Kashmir, and Pakistan’s warning that it is preparing for “all eventualities”, appear to be more political posturing than a prelude to all-out war. At least, that is what the international community hopes as the nuclear-armed neighbours square off once again.
Rationally speaking, neither country’s prime minister can afford another full-scale conflict – Pakistan’s Imran Khan because he is still getting started after winning power for the first time last July, India’s Narendra Modi because he is seeking a second chance in national polls this spring.
Continue reading...Indian PM lampooned for ‘manufactured’ interview
Narendra Modi accused of being afraid of media after rare interview that failed to ask tough questions
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has been accused of being afraid of the media, after consenting to a rare interview – just one of a handful in four years as PM – on New Year’s Day in which he answered a range of questions that critics compared to “free-hit deliveries” in cricket.
Related: India: world's biggest election has suddenly become competitive
Continue reading...India: world’s biggest election has suddenly become competitive
PM Narenda Modi weakened after Rahul Gandhi’s Congress ends 2018 with string of regional victories
The world’s largest exercise in democracy looms in 2019. In the beachside towns of Kerala state, the mountain villages of the Himalayas and across the dusty cities of the Gangetic plain, an estimated 850 million people will cast their votes in India’s national election sometime between March and May. And the race just got competitive.
A few months ago the prime minister, Narendra Modi, looked invincible. His party had followed its thumping national election win in 2014 with a run of victories in India’s largest states. The Congress party, which ushered India into independence 70 years ago and had been its default ruler since, was reduced to a rump, with leaders from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) boasting the country would soon be “Congress-mukt” (Congress-free).
Continue reading...