By Muhammad Luqman
India’s Hindu reviavalist Bharatiya Janata Party has secured a landslide victory in the General Elections held over the last six weeks, paving way for second five year term for the incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi..
BJP led alliance has won around 350 seats in the 543 seats in the parliament , followed by just 91 seats of Rahul Gandhi led alliance.
Jubilant Narendra Modi has hailed it as a historic mandate given by the people of India.
“We all want a new India. I want to bow down my head and say thank you,” Mr Modi said in a victory address to BJP workers on Thursday evening.
Exhibiting sportsman spirit, the main opposition alliance, which is headed by Rahul Gandhi’s Indian National Congress , has conceded the defeat.
At a press conference in the capital New Delhi, Rahul accepted the results of the general election as well as his Amethi seat in Uttar Pradesh, which he had held since 2004 and his family had held for decades.
A party or coalition needs at least 272 seats to secure a majority in the 543-member lower house of parliament, or Lok Sabha.
In 2014, the BJP won 282 seats – the biggest victory by any party in 30 years – and with its allies it secured 336 seats in that parliament.
The Congress, which won just 44, suffered its worst defeat in 2014 and with its allies took up just 60 seats in the lower house.
During the 2019 elections, 900 million voters were eligible to take part in seven rounds of voting.
According to analysts, a combination of nationalist rhetoric, religious polarisation and a slew of welfare programmes helped Modi to secure a second successive win.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has congratulated Narendra Modi over his victory on Twitter, and said he looked forward to working with him for “peace, progress and prosperity in South Asia”.
Narendra Modi, who is set to be re-elected as prime minister of India after his party succeeded in the election, thanked Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan for extending good wishes to him.
In response to the tweet by his Pakistani counterpart, Modi said, “Thank you PM. I warmly express my gratitude for your good wishes”.
“I have always given primacy to peace and development in our region,” he added.
Modi, a former cadre in the militaristic hardline Hindu group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and chief minister of Gujurat in 2002 when riots killed more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, is also seen as divisive.
Lynchings of Muslims and low-caste Dalits for eating beef and slaughtering and trading in cattle have risen, adding to anxiety among India’s 170-million-strong Muslim population.
Under Modi several cities with names rooted in India’s Islamic Mughal past have been re-named, while some school textbooks have been changed to downplay Muslims’ contributions to India.
