The exit polls released on Saturday evening indicate that the current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, is ready to return for a third five-year term in office, writes the Financial Times.
According to polls conducted by six Indian television stations and agencies, Modi’s National Democratic Alliance won the election with a comfortable majority of 353 to 401 seats in India’s 543-seat Lok Sabha, or lower house.
This gives Modi a good chance of forming the next government, which will take him into his second decade as prime minister. In the previous elections in India in 2019, the NDA coalition won 352 seats in the lower house, of which Modi’s BJP party won 303 on its own.
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“Some speculate that the BJP will once again exceed the 300-seat mark, or even surpass this result,” says Rahul Verma, a fellow at the Center for Policy Studies, a New Delhi think tank.
The election began on April 19 and was held in several stages due to logistical and security challenges in a country with a diverse geography and nearly 1 billion registered voters.
If poll predictions are confirmed on Tuesday, when the official results are announced, the victory will strengthen Modi’s image as one of the world’s strongest leaders, who presides over a fast-growing economy and has a growing influence on geopolitics.
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In the past, exit polls have shown mixed results in predicting elections in India, but in recent years, they have proven to be a more reliable indicator of voter decisions.
India’s 73-year-old leader campaigned under the slogan “Modi’s Guarantee,” citing government welfare programs that benefit hundreds of millions of Indians and his own record of reducing poverty and growing the world’s fifth-largest economy.
India’s GDP grew at a better-than-expected 7.8 percent quarter-on-quarter pace in the three months to March, with its economy one of the fastest-growing in the world since the COVID-19 pandemic.
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