New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday won an outsized mandate for a second term in office, with his BJP scoring an absolute majority covering large swathes of the country.
The BJP has won 299 seats in declared results and is leading in four more in the 543-member Lok Sabha, surpassing its 2014 victory and leaving a shell-shocked opposition struggling to touch even the 100-mark. PM Modi’s staggering triumph, many believe, establishes his cult status in the country where the only others to achieve back-to-back majorities were Congress icons like Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
PM Modi, 68, and BJP president Amit Shah began the first day of a new term with visits to party patriarchs LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, believed to be upset since they were asked to sit out this election.
The BJP and its allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) are set to win around 350 seats, compared to 336 in 2014, but the BJP’s tally will settle at an all-time high.
Addressing party workers who showered rose petals on him and Amit Shah on Thursday evening, PM Modi said: “Whatever happened in these elections is in the past, we have to look ahead. We have to take everyone forward, including our opponents.”
BJP chief Amit Shah, the architect of the victory, tweeted: “This victory is India’s victory. This is the victory of the hopes of youths, the poor, and farmers. This massive win is the victory of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s development and the people’s trust in him. On the behalf of crores of BJP workers, I congratulate Narendra Modi.”
The BJP swept Karnataka, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the states that the Congress won in the assembly elections last December. The Congress-Janata Dal Secular alliance has been ridden with internal fights and strain for months. It accused the BJP of constantly trying to destabilise it by trying to engineer defections.
The alliance of Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav could not stop the BJP’s onslaught in Uttar Pradesh, the state that sends the highest number of lawmakers to parliament. The BJP and its alliance partner Apna Dal won 64 of the state’s 80 seats. The results were a shocker for the opposition, which was expecting the alliance to be as effective against the BJP this time as it was during last year’s by-elections in Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana.
