India election: How Modi, BJP lost majority in election surprise
Though he is still set for a rare third term, the results of India’s election were disappointing for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
NEW DELHI — Until now, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had seemed unstoppable.
Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had come to dominate the world’s biggest democracy since coming to power 10 years ago, their Hindu nationalist politics becoming ever more entrenched in India along the way. Even as critics accused him of stoking religious tensions, eroding human rights and muzzling the press, Modi was consistently rated as the most popular leader in the world.
It was only in January that Modi, 73, inaugurated a grand Hindu temple on a contested holy site in the northern city of Ayodhya, fulfilling a longtime promise to supporters and stirring fear among India’s Muslim minority, who have found themselves increasingly marginalized under his rule.
It was a crowning moment for Modi that was expected to help him win favor with voters in Hindu-majority India as he sought a rare third term and a supermajority for his party in an election this year that was widely predicted to be a landslide.
On Tuesday, as early vote counting showed a far narrower result that was a shocking rebuke to Modi’s rule, the constituency that includes Ayodhya was among those the BJP conceded to the opposition.
Rating: 5