Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi
India’s triumphant Hindu nationalists declared “the start of a new era” in the world’s biggest democracy on Friday as the ruling Congress conceded defeat in elections that exposed anger about sickly economic growth and rampant corruption.
Preliminary results at the climax of the marathon six-week election showed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its hardline leader Narendra Modi on track for the first parliamentary majority by a single party in 30 years.
Most of the country’s 1.2 billion people, more than half of whom are under 25, weren’t even born the last time a party had such a dominant position.
Modi, the 63-year-old son of a low-caste tea seller tainted by anti-Muslim violence in his home state of Gujarat in 2002, wrote on Twitter, “India has won. Good days are coming.”
The stunning results exceeded all forecasts. Firecrackers exploded at BJP offices around the country and sweets were handed out in celebrations that began only a few hours after the first figures filtered out.
The triumph redraws India’s political map, vaulting the BJP from a party with support mostly in the northern Hindi-speaking belt to a pan-national force with a huge mandate for change.
The immediate change they will need to deliver is an improvement in the economy, growing at its slowest rate in a decade, but its commitment to its Hindu nationalist agenda will be closely watched by India’s 150 million Muslims.
“This is the beginning of change, a people’s revolution and the start of a new era,” said senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar.
Preliminary figures from the Election Commission showed the BJP winning more than the 272 seats required for a majority on its own in the 543-seat parliament, with victories by its allies taking it easily in excess of 320.
The Congress party, the national secular force that has run India for all but 13 years since independence, was set to crash to its worst ever result after a decade in power.
“We accept defeat. We are ready to sit in the opposition,” senior Congress leader and spokesman Rajeev Shukla told reporters at party headquarters in New Delhi as preliminary results showed it winning only 47 seats.
“Modi promised the moon and stars to the people. People bought that dream,” he added.
Source: Prothom Alo
