Indian PM’s party ahead in biggest state election: exit polls

BJP, however, will have to tread carefully in these states by forgoing measly political gains and considering regional sentiments and sensibilities as one of its key considerations, to clinch a clear win. Indeed, Modi had gone all in the Uttar Pradesh campaign, holding 27 rallies across the breadth of the state and capping with a three-day extravaganza of roadshows in his Parliamentary constituency of Varanasi. The staggered five-week vote in that state alone marks the biggest election in the world in 2017.

The elections in Uttar Pradesh will serve as a powerful gauge of Modi’s performance and that of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with just two years to go before India’s next general elections.

Although the BJP rode on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity, party president Amit Shah got the organisational chariot for the success assembled by three musketeers – Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharaks Shiv Prakash and Sunil Bansal and former pracharak Om Mathur.

The biggest change was the fact that unlike in 2014, when Uttar Pradesh was an essential but a part of the national jigsaw, in 2017, the fight was to win the state and Modi wasn’t available as the Chief Ministerial candidate.

Results were scheduled to be announced Saturday.

But Akhilesh will feel the heat and so will his goodwill among party delegates who he successfully pulled to his camp during the prolonged and public spat with his dad who was dead opposed to any alliance with any party, let alone the Congress. Its efforts paid off in 2014 elections, when the BJP polled well among non-Yadav members of the Other Backward Classes and with Dalit voters.

Although the BJP drowned in the Mamata Banerjee wave in West Bengal a year ago, the party improved its vote share to a double-digit level. So even though the two parties (along with Congress, the fading national party associated with the Gandhi political dynasty that had joined one of them in electoral alliance), together won more than half the votes, India’s first-past-the post system allowed the BJP to romp home with a 39.7% vote share.

“Voters largely support his policies. We have already identified 175 winning candidates for the polls”, Yeddyurappa told reporters in Bengaluru.

The opposition Congress and other rivals of the BJP hoped that the voters would punish Modi’s government for its decision to demonetise the country’s highest-value currency bills last November, which brought huge economic hardships, especially to the poor. A win will test the acceptance of Modi’s November 8 decision to remove high-value notes from circulation in an attempt to curb corruption.

Banks and ATMs witnessed massive lines of people for months.

“Modi is decisive”, she said. A number of reputed global economists, included Harvard’s Lawrence Summers and Ken Rogoff criticized Modi’s move as excessive.

“He may have hit us in one eye, but he hit the rich in two eyes”, said a farmer in a village two hours outside of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh.

Shah said his party would be able to form the government in Goa and Manipur by virtue of the party’s showing. “And we all know how well Modi has developed Gujarat”. He said the return to power in 2019 will not be as easy as it seems. The BJP tried to do some damage control by tossing up Manohar Parrikar’s name midway through the campaign, but it was too late. The RSS leaders also want Modi to act tough with Mamata because they see her “in cahoots with Islamist radicals”. The rupee added as much as 0.1 percent to 66.67 per dollar. “So coming back to power in 2019 will not be easy”, Malik said.