This Article is From May 13, 2014

Voters in India Expected to Give Narendra Modi a Mandate

Voters in India Expected to Give Narendra Modi a Mandate

Narendra Modi, BJP's prime ministerial candidate, waves to his supporters during a roadshow in Varanasi on April 24.

New Delhi: Exit polls released Monday suggested that voters in India's parliamentary election will deliver a mandate for the Bharatiya Janata Party's Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist who has promised to create manufacturing jobs and overhaul the country's infrastructure. (Narendra Modi on Course for Election Victory, Exit Polls Show)

The country's stock market surged to a record high on the last day of voting on the news that the BJP coalition could receive more than 272 of the lower house's 545 seats, enough to allow Modi to form a government without forging a coalition with fractious regional power brokers.

However, India's exit polls are not always reliable, having incorrectly predicted a BJP victory in 2004, when the Indian National Congress won by a comfortable margin, and underestimated the Congress' winning margin in 2009. The official vote count will take place Friday.

Turnout exceeded 66 percent, according to the election commission, even before Monday's voters were included in the polls, setting a new benchmark in India. The previous record, of around 64 percent, was set in 1984, during a wave of emotion that followed the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. (India Sets New Record for Voter Turnout at Over 66%)

Modi, 63, tapped into growing frustration with the Congress party, and the Gandhi-Nehru political dynasty that has controlled the party since India's independence in 1947. In an interview published Monday, he promised that he would come to power without "hangers-on or darbaris," a Hindi word that translates as "courtiers."

"Look at what is happening in the capital," he said. "Delhi is being controlled by a cabal that has vested interests in the status quo."

As the campaign entered its final weeks, Modi appeared confident of winning, and at rallies he began to focus his remarks on the need for a large margin of victory to bring change to India.
"If a vehicle is stuck in the mud, and the mud is strong, no matter how hard you push, you cannot pull it out," he said at a rally in the city of Roorkee last weekend. "If the whole country is in a deep ditch, I need strength, dear brothers and sisters, I need 300 seats to get it out."

Jai Pal Singh, a reporter for the Voice of the Nation, said voters' expectations of Modi were so high that they could prove dangerous if they are not met.

"If the results are not up to the mark, if there will not be a drastic change in life - what shall I say - the emotions will break," Singh said.

After Monday's exit polls suggested that the Congress' share of parliamentary seats might fall below 100, party officials said that the results were unreliable. In a television appearance, the party spokesman Randeep Surjewala said that Modi's campaign had stirred up tensions between Hindus and Muslims.

"He may have managed to get some support in some pockets, but in the long term it is India which lost because of this rabid polarization," Surjewala said.

Markets, however, responded positively. Since December, when local elections pointed to a national BJP victory, stock market indexes have risen about 12 percent. That trend continued Monday, when the Sensex index surged 556 points to 23,551, and the 50-share Nifty benchmark climbed to a record 7,020.05 points. The Indian rupee also rose to its strongest level since July. (Sensex Hits Another High as Exit Polls Point to Modi Win)

Amisha Vora, joint managing director at Prabhudas Lilladher Group, a Mumbai-based brokerage, said markets were reacting to the prospect that Modi "will have a lot of discretion to make policy changes."

"I wouldn't say that it is the BJP regime that the markets are so bullish about," Vora said. "At this point of time it seems that they are rather bullish about Mr. Modi."

 

© 2014, The New York Times News Service
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