Indian Elections Start Without Modi Wave

(CTN News) — Elections to the 18th Lok Sabha began on Friday in 21 Indian states, encompassing 102 seats of the 545-member parliament. While voters queued up in sweltering heat across most of the country, recording an overall voting rate of more than 60%, there was no hint of a Modi wave.

Eight seats were up for grabs in politically significant western Uttar Pradesh in the first of seven phases of the election. The state has 80 MPs and is seen as a must-win for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambition for a third term.

His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 62 seats in 2019, owing primarily to the military stalemate with Pakistan, which he exploited with army-themed campaign posters.

The sectarian divisiveness fostered in Muzaffarnagar by bogus allegations of Muslims abducting Hindu girls boosted the 2014 election results. This time, the crucial BJP theme of a Ram temple in Ayodhya has failed to energize people.

Analysis of Modi Wave Absence in Indian Elections

Furthermore, this time, the Jat group of farmers, which previously supported the BJP, is standing in solidarity with other farmers in Haryana and Punjab, fighting for rights promised by the Modi government but never implemented.

The Wire news portal conversed with religious and caste representatives in Bijnor and found no evidence of a Modi wave. The ‘wave’ brought him victory in the most populous state, including his constituency of Varanasi.

A Brahmin interlocutor presented himself in the discussion as a staunch BJP supporter who would not vote for the party this time.

His young son will also not vote for Mr Modi, citing corruption in the electoral bond scheme and the imprisonment of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

He said his wife would not vote for Mr Modi because of the price increase.

In western Uttar Pradesh, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of former Dalit state chief minister Mayawati is competing against the Samajwadi Party of the INDIA opposition bloc and the BJP.

Ms. Mayawati’s choice to go it alone could hurt INDIA candidates in western Uttar Pradesh, and rather than a Modi surge, he could win several seats, but not all.

According to The Indian Express’s Neerja Chowdhury’s spot report from Rajasthan, unlike the previous two general elections where the BJP swept the state, a contest is expected in nine to ten Lok Sabha constituencies.

An entrepreneur in Mandaava in Jhunjhunu told Express that the BJP would have struggled to win without Modi. This time, there’s no Junoon (enthusiasm).

A BJP leader described the situation on the ground, adding, “It may not change the direction of the wind, but shifts are being felt this time.”

A political observer described it: “When you look closely, these clashes do not reflect a national fight between the BJP and the Congress. A heavyweight contender or a local group competition appears to overshadow the Modi factor, transforming it into a takkar (fight).”

In the previous two general elections, which the BJP swept, gaining 25 of 25 seats in Rajasthan, the Modi factor was able to subsume these local issues, and it may still do so in many constituencies.

“Modi thoda struggle mein aa gaye hain (Modi is struggling a little),” said a shopkeeper, a pro-BJP Brahmin working near the famous Khatu Shyamji Mandir in Sikar district, where hundreds of devotees were attempting to catch a glimpse of the highly revered local deity in the middle of a hot afternoon.

West Bengal has seven phases of elections, the final of which takes place on June 1. It registered a turnout of 66.34 percent until 3 p.m. However, violence marred polling in the Cooch Behar constituency, according to The Hindu. The TMC and the BJP battled and filed 80 and 39 complaints against each other, respectively, over poll violence, voter intimidation, and assaults on poll agents, according to sources from both parties.

In strife-torn Manipur, around 63.03 percent of the nearly 1.544 million voters exercised their franchise until 3 p.m. In Chhattisgarh, more than 58 percent of voters voted in the first four hours of polling in the Naxal-hit Bastar Lok Sabha constituency, where an assistant commandant of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was killed when an improvised explosive device planted by Naxalites detonated in Bijapur district.