Today: Mandate with destiny
Over 642 million votes cast in India's Lok Sabha elections, with PM Modi expected to secure a third term. Exit polls favor BJP over the opposition.
Roughly 642 million votes cast at over 1.05 million polling booths over the past six weeks for the next Lok Sabha will be counted beginning 8am on Tuesday, bringing the curtain down on the world’s largest democratic exercise that saw record-busting numbers of people braving searing temperatures to cast their franchise.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is tipped to win a historic third consecutive term, becoming only the second leader after India’s first PM, Jawaharlal Nehru, to achieve the feat. Every national exit poll has predicted that his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will either match or better its 2019 tally of 303 and make significant inroads in the eastern and southern regions of the country.
In contrast, exit polls forecast that the Opposition’s Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will face reverses across the country and pick up only minuscule gains in the heartland, finishing a distant second to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
The Opposition has dismissed the exit polls, conducted by independent media and research firms, as part of the BJP’s narrative.
“We have created a world record of 642 million proud Indian voters. This is a historic moment,” chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar said on Monday. “The Indian elections are indeed a miracle. Having no parallel in the world.”
The number is higher than the numbers polled in 2019 but indicated that the final turnout — there were 968 million registered voters in India this time — settled around 66.3%, roughly 1.4 percentage points lower than the figure five years ago.
“This is 1.5 times the voters of all G7 countries and 2.5 times the voters of 27 countries in the European Union (EU). We thank each and every one who took part in this festival of democracy,” Kumar said.
But the festival wasn’t without its controversies, which included a litany of complaints by Opposition parties that election speeches by Modi and other senior BJP leaders fanned communalism, delayed release of turnout data for the initial phases; there were also complaints about problems faced by minority voters in a few regions, and a tussle between the poll body and activists in the Supreme Court. Opposition parties and some activists said that ECI’s response to allegations of hate speech by BJP leaders was tardy and inadequate, and the delay in turnout numbers vitiated public trust in the polling process.
Conducting the election in seven phases required about 15 million polling and security personnel, 135 special trains, 400,000 vehicles, 68,763 monitoring teams, and 1,692 air sorties, according to EC figures.
Kumar said 312 million voters, or roughly 49%, were women. “Voters chose action over apathy, belief over cynicism and in some cases, the ballot over the bullet,” he said, the final reference likely pointing to the historic high turnouts in restive Jammu & Kashmir.
The assembly election results of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha will also be announced on Tuesday. The outcomes in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim were already declared on Sunday.
The world’s largest elections began on April 19 and spanned seven phases, the final rounds conducted as large swathes of the country reeled under an oppressive heatwave that pushed the temperature to sweltering levels. Delhi recorded its worst heat in 80 years and a station in outer Delhi, Mungeshpur, even breached the 52 degrees C mark, the highest ever in India, before the weather department disputed the results and said they were about 3 degrees higher due to a faulty thermometer.
The six-week polls were a mind-boggling affair in a country where the voting population was larger than the combined populations of the US and the UK, Brazil, Russia, Japan, and France. The polls took place in seven phases — on April 19, 26, May 7, 13, 20, 25, and June 1 — a testament to the daunting logistical and security challenges in overseeing an electorate stretching from the Himalayas in the north to deserts in the west, insurgent-infested tropical jungles in the centre and the coastal plains in the south. Fifteen million ECI personnel and 68,763 monitoring teams used 1.692 air sorties, 135 special trains and nearly 400,000 vehicles to ferry polling, security personnel and electronic voting machines to inhospitable heights and desolate constituencies.
Though 8,360 candidates from 744 political parties and independents were in the fray, the elections were largely a bipolar contest between the NDA and INDIA. The NDA contested 540 seats with BJP fighting 441 seats, and the INDIA bloc fielding candidates (more than one in Kerala, Punjab and West Bengal, where the partners also contested against each other) in 543 seats and the Congress fighting 328 seats, its lowest ever. The NDA did not contest three seats in Kashmir.
The BJP appeared certain of a thumping victory. Exit polls have suggested that Modi remains a pan-India factor that boosted the BJP’s performance across state and regional divides and lifted the party to sweep states it hitherto had little presence in — such as Telangana or Odisha. A majority of the polls predicted that a potential third term for Modi could be with a bigger mandate than his first or second terms.
BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said the INDIA bloc and Congress should be ready to gracefully accept their “inevitable” defeat rather than “demeaning” the dignity of democracy.
In contrast, the Opposition’s plan of forcing one-on-one contests may have backfired, the exit polls suggested; other than a smattering of small gains in northern India, the Opposition was seen as losing seats everywhere.
“We are very hopeful that our results are completely opposite to what the exit polls are showing,” senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi said.
ECI issued a 10-step guide to reassure candidates and voters ahead of the counting, stressing on its protocols, including randomisation of electronic voting machines, unique numbers for EVMs used at polling stations, sealing of EVMs and signing on paper seals, sealing of strong rooms on the night of poll day, three-layer security, 24x7 CCTV coverage and counting micro-observer at each table.
“Entire counting process is absolutely robust. We don’t think anywhere there is a robust system like it. Every part is decided. The whole process is codified. Micro observers are in place. There cannot be any mistake in this process,” Kumar said.
“Observers are present during the world’s largest counting exercise. Before the elections, EVMs were randomised. All candidates and agents were present to observe that who were present at the booth,” he added.