Modi wins landslide victory in Indian election

NEW DELHI - Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party won a landslide victory in the world’s largest election as voters endorsed his vision of a muscular, assertive and stridently Hindu India.   

With more than half the votes counted, official results showed Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party leading in 300 parliamentary constituencies, well above the 272-seat majority mark in parliament. If that number holds, the BJP will win more seats in this election than it did in 2014, which was already considered a landmark win.   

The result represents a stunning mandate for Modi, a charismatic and polarizing politician who towers over his rivals. No Indian prime minister has returned to power with a similarly large mandate in nearly five decades.   

Nearly 900 million people were eligible to vote in the six-week long election.

 The vote-counting began Thursday morning and full results are expected in the evening local time, but Modi and senior members of his party have declared victory.   

The Indian National Congress, the country’s main opposition party, was leading in just 50 seats, a disastrous showing for a once-mighty political force that governed India for most of its post-independence history. 

Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi clan, failed to find a strategy to counter Modi’s appeal.   

(c) 2019, The Washington Post · Joanna Slater, Niha Masih · 
WORLD, ASIA PACIFIC · May 23, 2019 - 5:01 PM   

Gandhi concedes personal defeat in family bastion

Rahul Gandhi, leader of India’s main opposition Congress  party, conceded Thursday he had lost his seat in the famous family’s  long-held home constituency.  
 “Smriti Irani (of the BJP) has won in Amethi and I  congratulate her. The people of Amethi have given their mandate,” Gandhi  told a news conference.  
NEW DELHI AFP 
May 23, 2019