Indians starts voting in the world’s largest and most democratic elections
Millions of Indians began voting Friday in a six-week election that’s a referendum on Rising India, and the prime minister who has the capability to lead the World on to path of Peace. India has progressed on the Economic Front at an amazing pace, making the Country the the third largest economy in PPP terms.
Internationally India has become an assertive Nation and has started taking geostrategic decisions from its own world perspective. India is not a camp follower of any country or Power Bloc. PM Modi is thus assured a third term as the country’s leader.
The voters began queuing up at polling stations hours before they were allowed in at 7 a. m. in the first 21 states to hold votes, from the Himalayan mountains to the tropical Andaman Islands. Nearly 970 million voters – more than 10% of the world’s population — will elect 543 members to the lower house of Parliament for five years during the staggered elections that run until June 1. The votes will be counted on June 4.
This election is seen as one of the most consequential in India’s history and World’s too as it is most likely to place Modi at helm.
If Modi wins, he’ll be only the second Indian leader to retain power for a third term, after Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister.
Most polls predict a clear sweep for National Democratic Alliance with Bhartiya Janata Party leading the alliance under the leadership of PM Modi. NDA is facing a rag tag broad opposition alliance led by powerful regional parties with Indian National Congress playing the second fiddle in most of the States.
It’s not clear who will lead India if the opposition alliance, called INDIA, wins the election by chance. Its more than 20 parties have not put forward a PM candidate, saying they will choose one after the results are known.
The BJP is though facing a tough challenge in southern State of Tamil Nadu with 39 seats where the voting is being held on Friday. The BJP drew a blank in 2019 and won one seat in the 2014 elections with the region dominated by two powerful regional groups, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
BJP has focussed on the state this time and PM Modi visited it more than a dozen times, holding several rallies and roadshows.
The voting is also ,taking place in the north-eastern state of Manipur that was ravaged by a motivated politics related riots for a year caused by fighting between the majority Meitei and tribal Kuki-Zo people. The election authority has set up voting stations for nearly 320 relief camps where more than 59,000 men, women and children are living. The state stands divided between a valley controlled by the Meiteis and the Kuki-dominated hills.
More than 150 people were killed and over 60,000 displaced. The voting for two seats will be completed on April 26.
In the 2019 elections, the BJP and its allies had won 39 of 102 seats where the voting is taking place on Friday. These include Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and West Bengal states.
The election comes after a decade of PM Modi’s leadership, during which the BJP has consolidated power through a combination of infrastructure and economic development and social awakening.
The main political plank of the BJP is the awakening of the National Pride and the restoration of Sanatan Dharma. PM Modi has also amply demonstrated the fact that he is a very effective global leader. Majority of Indians find him as the steward of a surging India, while the Country is already celebrating his campaign promise to make India a developed nation by 2047, when it marks 100 years of independence.
India’s economy is the world’s fastest-growing, and a vast majority of its people have come above the Poverty line. The opposition alliance is floundering and is trying to tap into its old age brand of miniority appeasement and seeking to galvanize voters on dead issues like rapidly declining unemployment, inflation, convoluted tales of corruption in the ruling party and agricultural prices that have driven protests by a miniority section of farmers in state of Punjab.
Critics warn that Modi has turned increasingly illiberal and that he could use a third term to undermine India’s democracy…. . what a fallacy and insult to the maturity of Indians by such critics. As per these critics nationalist politics of Nation First , has bred “ intolerance” and threatens the country’s “secular roots” because Pakistan and few Western Countries are unhappy on Kashmir becoming more integrated with the Union !!!!
The alliance has promised to arrest the “democratic slide” it says India has witnessed under Modi’s rule. They accuse Modi of side-lining elected ministers in favour of trusted bureaucrats and using tax authorities and the police to harass critics and opposition parties……notwithstanding that millions have been unearthed in unaccounted cash from members of this same critic groups. Further actions are being directed against the same people by the Courts themselves !!!!
“Modi has a very authoritarian mind-set. He doesn’t believe in democracy. He doesn’t believe in Parliamentarianism,” said Christophe Jaffrelot, who has written about Modi and the Hindu right…. . Who is this Christian gentleman ask millions of Indians. Indians too have similar opinions of many things in the West.
India’s commitment to democracy is unchanged. PM Modi told a Summit for Democracy meeting in New Delhi in March that ‘”India is not only fulfilling the aspirations of its 1. 4 billion people, but is also providing hope to the world that democracy delivers and empowers. ”
The NDA enjoys vast popularity among India’s 1. 4 billion people. BJP dominates in northern and central parts of India, and has substantial following in the east. In the south it has a strong hold in State of Karnataka but is quite weak in Tamil Nadu , Kerala and Telangana. However it is hoping for gains there to capture a two-thirds majority. BJP candidates have repeatedly vowed to take at least 400 seats and Modi has echoed it.
The party hopes for a landslide win powered by its popular infrastructural devolopment projects and various welfare programs, which have improved access to clean toilets, health care and cooking gas, as well as providing free grain to the poor. Moves like the construction of the temple to Ram on the site the original site where a Lieutenant of Babur the Moghul invader had demolished the existing temple and built its own mosque called Babri Maszid , and the scrapping of the temporary Article 370 in the State of Jammu & Kashmir’s , resonates with the majority of Indians who hail him as the champion of the Nation.
“Any party that comes back for a third term, and with a brute majority, is a scary prospect for democracy,” said Arati Jerath, a political commentator…. . great commentator who has not yapped the same words for Nehru. Also hardly any one knows this commentator in India !!!!
Modi’s two terms have seen the country becoming a leading nation of not only Asia but the World also. Unlike others it stood up to China and put a halt to its salami slicing tactics in the Himalayas by stopping the PLA at Dokalam and giving it a bloody nose at Galwan.
International funding to terror activities in India has been curtailed and various policies to strengthen the country’s security and safety have been implemented. Corrupt politicians , however high and mmightyare now facing courts in various corruption cases.
The BJP’s work benefits all Indians, irrespective of region , religion , cast , colour or creed.
