PM Modi’s Hindu nationalists set for a hat trick victory in national elections
New Delhi – Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party will win a commanding majority in Indian elections this summer and form its third government in a row, according to the results of a new survey.
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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and allies would secure 335 seats and comfortably cross the tally of 272 needed in the 543-seat lower house to form government for five years, according to the “Mood of the Nation” survey published recently by the India Today media group.
Lok Sabha Election 2024: BJP vs Congress
— IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) February 8, 2024
Mood of the Nation survey 2024 predicts BJP may win more seats than Congress. Take a look.#DIU #MoodOfTheNation #BJP #Congress pic.twitter.com/WmmTwZE6Rl
The BJP and its allies won 351 constituencies in 2019 after returning to India’s political landscape with a roar winning 336 posts in 2014 - a far cry from the two forlorn seats it grabbed in 1984.
The survey , which was conducted in December and January, also forecast INDIA, a big tent alliance of opposition parties including the Congress, would bag 166 seats in the world’s biggest election involving 968 million voters next May.
Ballot gallop
The BJP predicts a big win of 400 seats, but that could remain just a wish, analysts say.
The Congress won 404 seats in the 1984 election held after its leader and prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated. That enormous record remains unbroken.
The 1984 polls were the last in which a party single-handedly won a majority of seats until 2014 when Modi won.
The private survey gave a thumbs up to Modi’s campaign for spiritual renaissance, his muscular policies that saw India back Russia against Ukraine despite protests from the West.
The predictions came as Modi said the BJP would steer India as the world’s third largest economy during his third five-year term in office.
“This is Modi’s guarantee,” the 73-year-old politician told a business gathering using illeism to drive home his point.
International rating agency S&SP Global forecast 2030 as the year when India’s 3.4 trillion euro economy– currently ranked the world’s fifth largest — will achieve Modi’s goal.
Forty-two percent of those surveyed said Modi’s ratings surged after he led the consecration of a Lord Ram temple in January.
Some 19 percent of those contacted credited Modi for raising India's international stature worldwide.
Country watches
Twelve percent backed the dismantling of Kashmir’s special powers - India’s only Muslim majority state and subject of two of the three wars with Pakistan since 1947.
Twenty percent hailed Modi’s anti-Covid drive though experts say India’s coronavirus toll was10 times higher than Delhi’s tally of 533,458. Many of the respondents were critical of the government.
Unemployment was a concern among 26 percent of the 35,801 respondents and Modi’s government also took a knock over inflation.
The Congress party targeted the survey saying it was too puny to represent the nation’s mood.
“The country is watching how state governments were brought down, parties were broken up and how 150 opposition MPs were taken out and suspended from the parliament ,” said party spokeswoman Rahika Khera.
“The country is watching,” she said.
White paper vs. Blck paper
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled a White Paper in parliament and labelled it a tribute to Modi’s efforts to “restore India’s past glory.”
It targeted Modi’s Congress predecessor – economist-turned- prime minister Manmohan Singh for failing to stamp out corruption during his 2004-2014 time in office.
“It was a crisis situation,” she claimed as the Congress presented a “Black Paper” against the government. The poll survey said almost half the respondents were unsure if Modi acted against corruption during his 10 years in office.
"Modi government's 10 years in power devastated the economy, aggravated unemployment, destroyed the agricultural sector, abetted crimes against women and committed grave injustices against minorities," 54-page document said.
The BJP's white paper hides behind the dark truth of the current economic situation under PM Modi's rule!
— Congress (@INCIndia) February 10, 2024
Demonetisation and its impact, destruction of the MSME sector and its impact on the country's employment rate, India slipping to the 111th rank in the Global Hunger Index,… pic.twitter.com/YrAxepwBpS
It accused the BJP of forcing 411 opposition party provincial lawmakers to join the BJP. Their (BJP) job is to finish democracy," Congress president Malllikarjun Kharge said.
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