Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a public meeting at Jerenga Pathar in Sivasagar district of Assam state, India, on January 23, 2021.
Biju Boro | AFP | Getty Images
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set for a rare third consecutive term in office as local election polls on Saturday suggested his Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance will win a parliamentary majority.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is expected to secure around 365 of the 543 seats in the lower house of Parliament, according to a poll summary by local news channel NDTV. The party or coalition that receives at least 272 votes will form the government. The final results expected on Tuesday may differ from election poll predictions.
If the election polls, which show a mixed record, are confirmed, Modi will serve as the country’s prime minister for another five years – a position he has held since 2014.
Voting in India, the world’s largest democratic election with nearly a billion eligible voters polled, took place in seven phases over the past six weeks and began on April 19. A total of 543 seats in the lower house are contested, and the party or coalition that receives at least 272 votes will form the government.
Under Modi’s decades-long rule, India experienced robust economic growth and a leap in its global reputation. Home to 1.4 billion people, India is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, growing by 7.2% in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, achieving the second-highest growth rate among G20 countries. The International Monetary Fund forecasts India’s economy will grow 6.8% in 2024 and 6.5% in 2025, compared to China’s forecast growth of 5% in 2024 and 4.5% in 2025.
Some economists are even more optimistic. “The bigger you grow, the harder it becomes to maintain very high levels of growth, but I think 7% to 7.5% growth is possible,” Sujan Hajra, chief economist at Anand Rathi Share and Stock Brokers, told CNBC He added that improving infrastructure will be a big priority to boost growth.
“Soft infrastructure such as improving the country’s healthcare network will be given much more emphasis than hard infrastructure this time as a lot of work has already been done on it,” Harja said.
In the BJP’s manifesto for the coming term, Modi promised that his government would make India one of the world’s three largest economies, vigorously fight poverty, open new avenues for growth and fight corruption.
Despite the optimism among world leaders about India’s growth trajectory under Modi’s rule, observers and critics warn that the prime minister’s third term could produce further signs of democratic backsliding. He was also accused of hate speech for calling Muslims “infiltrators” at a rally days after voting began. India’s religious divide continued to be a hot topic during the election, as did unemployment.
According to a survey by the Center for the Study of Developing Societies, unemployment was the top concern for 27% of the 10,000 respondents. More than half (62%) of respondents also said finding a job has become more difficult over the past five years during Modi’s second term.
Modi reportedly said in March he was confident the BJP and the broader National Democratic Alliance would secure a total of 400 seats, but analysts say that may matter less as long as he is close to the 303 seats he won in 2019 has achieved.
“It will still be a very positive outlook for the Indian equity market as we have seen the kind of progress and efficiency that it has been able to bring from a governance perspective since 2019 with 303 seats,” said Malcolm Dorson, a senior portfolio manager and head the emerging market strategy at Global X ETFs.
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2024-06-01 13:32:05
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