Asia-Pacific

Second of seven rounds of polling begins in India’s general elections

Prime minister Modi has frequently iterated his divine right to rule India

Supporters of Bharatiya Janata Party wearing T-shirts with the face of party leader and India's prime minister Narendra Modi as they walk past a hoarding with a photograph of Modi in Varanasi, India. Photograph: Niharika Kulkarni/AFP

Rahul Bedi's face
Rahul Bedi in New Delhi
Thu Apr 25 2024 - 20:46

The second of seven rounds of polling in India’s general elections to elect 88 MPs commences on Friday amid warnings of “severe heatwave” conditions in several constituencies, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees.

Voting takes place against the backdrop of prime minister Narendra Modi attacking the principal opposition Congress party for promising financial and employment benefits to the country’s minority indigent Muslim community if elected to office.

Political commentators said such outbursts by the prime minister were aimed at boosting the radical credentials of his Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) after last week’s polling for 102 Lok Sabha, or lower house of parliament, seats had reportedly fallen short of its expectations.

Voting to elect all 543 MPs is scheduled for completion by June 1st, followed by results three days later.

READ MORE

As voting continued in phases, numerous aspiring parliamentarians were busy patronising astrologers, soothsayers and numerologists to “manage” the heavens on their behalf and get them elected.

Many such contenders took no action, such as filing their nominations, travelling or holding rallies, until their planetary minders, reportedly known for having previously delivered electoral successes, decreed the timing to be propitious. Even their clothing while campaigning has been, in many instances, “astrologically colour-coded”.

Hindu Vedic scholar P U Pannikar said most Indian politicians looked to astrologers to safeguard their electoral prospects, believing them to be more effective than psephologists, political strategists and pollsters in ensuring positive outcomes. And though some politicians publicly rejected astrologers, they invariably conferred with them in private, he said.

Though media accounts say Modi (73) has himself consulted astrologers, the prime minister has frequently iterated his divine right to rule India from the time he made his initial – and successful – prime ministerial bid in 2014.

In April of that year he stated at an election rally that he had been chosen by God to rescue India from the chaos wreaked by the incumbent Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance, which was voted out of power soon afterwards. “God chooses certain people to do difficult work, and I believe God has chosen me for this,” he said.

In late 2018, whilst inaugurating a police memorial in New Delhi, the prime minister again declared that God had picked him to unveil the monument in question.

And, shortly before introducing a bill in parliament last September providing for one third of the seats in the Lok Sabha to be reserved for women Modi said God had selected him for the “sacred work” of empowering Indian women.

But he took his apparent divinity a step further in January 2024, shortly before inaugurating the temple dedicated to the Hindu God Ram at Ayodhya in north India. He posted on X, in Hindi, that God had made him an ‘instrument to represent all the people of India” which was a “huge responsibility”. “For the first time in my life I am going through such feelings” he said.

Senior BJP leaders concurred, with one of them, who had led Hindu zealots to demolish the 16th century mosque in 1992 and build the temple in its stead, stating that Ram himself had chosen Modi to build – and unveil – the shrine.

Such adulation for the Modi is not unusual as he has emerged as the BJP’s foremost campaigner, with a large number of voters surveyed by pollsters saying they were voting exclusively for the prime minister and not so much the BJP, much like in a presidential contest.

Backed by a regime friendly media, numerous government welfare schemes have been named after the prime minister. His picture adorned carrier bags in which 800 million Indians were provided free rations by the government, as well as tens of millions of Covid vaccination certificates and countrywide billboards celebrating international meetings such as last September’s G20 summit.

The world’s largest cricket stadium, in the prime minister’s western home state of Gujarat, was also named after him, as was the BJP’s election manifesto, simply dubbed “Modi’s guarantee 2024″ alongside his picture.

  • Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
  • Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
  • Our In The News podcast is now published daily - Find the latest episode here
IndiaNarendra Modi