A victory for Modi, 73, will make him only the second prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru to win three consecutive terms.
Will Sickularism be nipped in the bud ?
A win for Modi would be a historic achievement for himself and his party. Modi even to foreign countries is the India’s 'strongman prime minister'.
His Hindu nationalist politics have significantly reshaped India’s secular democracy over the past decade.
Right from the beginning, PM Narendra Modi was widely seen as a frontrunner even before elections began.
Over his ten years as prime minister, the cult of personality around him has grown while his power has become deeply entrenched.
Several exit polls suggested that the BJP’s dominance would increase further this time, with gains in southern states such as Tamil Nadu and eastern states such as West Bengal, where the party had previously struggled to gain strong support due to regional opposition.
Yashwant Deshmukh, one of the many pollsters who predicted win, says they were not surprised by the Exit Poll figures as in last few years various surveys and trackers have maintained that Modi continues to remain popular and hence his win appears very much a natural phenomenon.
The battle in Uttar Pradesh, which accounts for large numbers that is 80 MPs, is likely to decide in favour of BJP.
Analysts might have underestimated the power of Ram Temple as vote getting factor; but it has been one of the most emotive issues in this election season.
The BJP appears to be holding on to its past stellar performance in North, West, Central and Northeast India. In each of these regions, there may be a marginal fall of seats (Haryana, Rajasthan, mainly) with a possible make-up in other seats in the region (Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh) and also West Bengal and Odisha.
Hence, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar will be closely watched.
In Telangana on the other hand, the BJP would be the beneficiary of the retreat of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRA), if the exit poll numbers hold. The BJP's being part of the TDP-Jana Sena alliance in Andhra Pradesh seems to have brought it an advantage.
The alliance it leads in Tamil Nadu may well emerge as the second-largest player in the state. Some are even projecting an account opening in Kerala.
Could a third term under Narendra Modi see the formalising of second-class status for minorities and the destruction of the country’s ancient composite culture? -- says 'Dawn', the popular Pakistan daily !!
In a recent article, political scientists, Ashutosh Varshney and Connor Staggs asked the rhetorical question: “Is India under Narendra Modi … beginning to resemble the American South under Jim Crow?” referring to state and local laws introduced in the southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th century that enforced racial segregation, says the article.
The Dawn piece further notes:
"To fully grasp the end-goals of Hindu nationalism or Hindutva, it is necessary to read its foundational texts. There are none more seminal than We or Our Nationhood Defined (1939) by Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, who led the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) from 1940 to 1973. The RSS is considered the heart and soul of the vast network of Hindu nationalist organisations, of which the BJP is the political wing.
Narendra Modi, a life-time member and former official of the RSS, credited it for grooming him to political leadership.
In his text, Golwalkar writes of his wariness of “hostile elements” within the country that “act as menace to national security”, singling out Muslims as the number one threat, followed by Christians.
His solution to “the danger of a cancer developing into its body politic” was offering the “foreign element” two options: “either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow it to do so, and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national race”.
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| Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar |
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