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Modi poised to win as vote counting begins

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India begins counting votes today for the largest democratic exercise in the world, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi widely expected to win following a grueling contest that focused squarely on his leadership after a military clash with rival Pakistan.

The Election Commission of India will start counting at 8:00am local time after a six-week-long process that began on April 11. Because India deploys electronic voting machines, counting should be completed on the same day, with clear trends emerging in the mid-morning. There’s roughly 900 million registered voters and with turnout at around 67%, that’s more than 600 million people casting ballots.

Nearly all exit polls predicted Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies in the National Democratic Alliance would sweep to a comfortable victory over the rival Congress party, led by Rahul Gandhi, and it’s United Progressive Alliance.

Although exit polls are often inaccurate in India, opinion surveys ahead of the polls had also predicted Modi would return to power, although at the helm of a slightly weaker coalition.

The election in India, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, took place amid rising concerns about unemployment, protests by impoverished farmers and in the wake of a deadly suicide bombing and military confrontation with Pakistan that darkened the national mood. Campaigning quickly got ugly, with Modi calling an assassinated former prime minister corrupt and rival political party supporters clashing violently in eastern India.

Under the BJP, the government has launched sprawling welfare programs to benefit the poor and surprised markets by sparring with central bank chiefs and eradicating 86% of currency overnight. His government gradually pivoted to a more populist economic program after launching structural reforms, such as a landmark goods and services tax.

Modi’s government has also adopted a more muscular posture toward rival Pakistan, eventually launching retaliatory air strikes after attempting diplomatic outreach to Islamabad earlier in its tenure. Indian troops also faced off against China in the Himalayas before orchestrating a detente with President Xi Jinping.

If Modi is returned to power, he’ll likely spend the next five years focusing on the promises he made in 2014 that targeted the aspirations of the middle class and business community, said Sandeep Shastri, a political scientist and Pro Vice Chancellor at Jain University in Bangalore.

“While they will continue to have the pro-poor stance that they’ve followed for the last five years, I think they’ll expand their bag of policies to focus much more on the middle class, the upper middle class and the business class,” Shastri said.

[Source: Times of India]
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