India elections: exit polls show Narendra Modi expected to win historic third term

Voting has come to a close in India’s mammoth elections, as exit polls widely predicted prime minister Narendra Modi would win a historic third term in proceedings marred by allegations of irregularities.

The election, the longest and largest in India’s history with almost a billion eligible voters, began in mid-April. As it progressed over seven phases until 1 June, a deadly heatwave gripped the country, with temperatures almost touching 50C in areas, leading to deaths of dozens of voters and polling officials.

Counting begins at 8am on Tuesday, and results are expected the same day. Vote counting is done simultaneously at counting stations in each of the 543 constituencies around the country.

According to a flurry of exit polls released on Saturday night, Modi and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) are looking at a decisive win and may even gain seats to win a two-thirds majority in parliament, which would allow the government to make far-reaching amendments to the constitution.

It would be a historic achievement for Modi, India’s strongman prime minister, whose Hindu nationalist politics have significantly re-shaped India’s secular democracy over the past decade. No prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first post-independence premier, has won three consecutive terms.

As the election unfolded, allegations of irregularities by the BJP began emerge. Opponents alleged the BJP was undermining India’s democratic processes through the harassment and intimidation of opposition candidates and parties and suppression of Muslim voters who are not the BJP’s usual vote bank. BJP leaders, including the prime minister himself, were accused of openly violating election rules as they resorted to polarising anti-Muslim rhetoric on the campaign trail.

Opposition parties also accused the BJP of using state machinery to go after them, including the arrest of senior opposition figures and the freezing of the funds of the Congress party by the tax authorities.

US thinktank Freedom House said this year the BJP had “increasingly used government institutions to target political opponents”.

On Sunday, Arwind Kejriwal, one of the most prominent opposition leaders and the chief minister of Delhi, was returned to jail after briefly being released on a temporary bail in order to campaign in the elections. Kejriwal has alleged the corruption case against him is “politically motivated” by the Modi government in order to undermine his party, a charge the BJP denies.

Rahul Gandhi, the most prominent member of the opposition’s once-formidable Congress party and scion of a dynasty that dominated Indian politics for decades, was convicted of criminal libel last year after a complaint by a member of Modi’s party.

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His two-year prison sentence saw him disqualified from parliament until the verdict was suspended by a higher court and raised concerns over democratic norms.

Hemant Soren, the former chief minister of the eastern state of Jharkhand, was also arrested in February in a separate corruption probe.

Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi and Soren are all members of an opposition alliance composed of more than two dozen parties, but the bloc has struggled to make inroads against Modi. According to predictions, the alliance, which includes the Congress party, will get just only 125 to 165 seats out of 543.

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.

“On one very basic level, the election didn’t matter,” said Neelanjan Sircar, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in Delhi. “The dominant view was always that Modi and the BJP are coming back, irrespective of the numbers. The bigger question mark is: what genuine democratic legitimacy will be derived from this election?”

India’s opposition sought to dismiss the exit poll projections, which they described as “bogus” and “fraudulent” and alleged they were deliberate attempts to justify rigging of the elections.

The mainstream media is seen to have been brought under the thumb of the BJP government and predominately pro-Modi narratives were broadcast during the campaign, including dozens of fawning interviews with the prime minister where he proclaimed several times to have been chosen by God.

Yet analysts warned that that the one-sided media narrative and election being seen as fait accompli before campaigning even began had led to a growing mistrust in the electoral system among the public. During the campaign, the election commission – the body tasked with regulating polls – was among those widely accused of being “spineless” and no longer a neutral observer after it ignored repeated calls to hold Modi and the BJP account for repeated alleged violations of election rules.

One of the most prominent figures vocalising these frustrations over the campaign was Dhruv Rathee, an Indian YouTuber whose videos criticising the Modi government and alleging an erosion of India’s democratic processes have earned him 21 million subscribers, far outreaching Modi’s social media presence.

Rathee has been releasing political commentary videos since 2017 but over the course of the election he rose to become a household name as one of the few who dared to voice dissent.

“This is the least fair election in India’s history,” said Rathee from Germany, where he now lives. “Opposition leaders have been put in jail, anyone who stands up to the BJP is harassed by the state or by police and the BJP has been given free rein to violate all the election rules and stir up hatred. There’s nothing fair about it.”

As campaigning came to a close, Modi – who had appeared at over 200 rallies over the course of campaigning – took himself on a 45-hour meditation retreat at a spiritual site in Tamil Nadu. Though it was said to be in isolation, hundreds of tv cameras were present and it was broadcast live across 24 hour news channels.

“Sources” told right wing media that the prime minister would be surviving on a liquid-only diet of coconut water and grape juice.