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India’s ruling party takes 303 of 542 seats in election win

Indias ruling party takes  of  seats in election win
India’s ruling party takes 303 of 542 seats in election win

2019-05-25 00:00:00 - Source: Baghdad Post

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with leaders of his

Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday following his thunderous

victory in national elections.

Modi met with his outgoing Cabinet ministers and later

presented his resignation along with theirs to President Ram Nath Kovind. The

president asked the officials to continue to serve until the new government

assumes office.

Media reports say Modi is likely to be sworn in for his

second term next Thursday.

The Election Commission announced that the BJP won 303 out

of 542 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, after the

official vote count finished Friday. That is well beyond the simple majority a

party in India needs to form a government. The BJP’s top rival, the Indian

National Congress led by Rahul Gandhi, won 52 seats, and the All India

Trinamool Congress led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee won 22.

Gandhi, whose great-grandfather, grandmother and father were

all prime ministers, personally conceded his seat, long a Congress party

bastion, to his BJP rival, India’s textiles minister, marking the end of an era

for modern India’s most powerful political dynasty.

Vote counting of the estimated 600 million ballots cast over

six weeks of staggered polling — the world’s largest democratic exercise —

began early Thursday.

The victory in India was widely seen as a referendum on

Modi’s Hindu-first politics that some observers say have bred intolerance

toward Muslims and other religious minorities, as well as his muscular stance

on neighboring Pakistan, with whom India nearly went to war earlier this year.

Analysts said voters will expect the new Modi government to

quickly return to the business of economic reform, which the BJP effectively

sidelined as a campaign issue after responding to a February terrorist attack

in Indian-controlled Kashmir with an airstrike in Pakistan that stoked

nationalist sentiments.

“Building up your national security credentials, as the only

person who can stand up to India’s ‘enemies’ can only take you so far. The real

question is can Modi deliver on his economic commitments, for example creating

the high number of jobs needed? This is essential to address India’s growing

wealth inequalities,” said Champa Patel, head of the Asia Pacific program at

London-based Chatham House.





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