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