Akela
Narendra Modi, 63, the “tea boy” who is India’s new Prime Minister has delivered the Bhartiya Janata Party’s (BJP) best result to form a government. This is the first parliamentary majority by a single party since 1984.
Just before taking blessing of his 90-year-old mother, Modi declared victory in a tweet which claimed “India has won”. He also promised “good days are coming.” The message quickly became India’s most retweeted Twitter posting.
With its allies, the Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP had already won or was winning 339 parliamentary seats, far more than the majority of 272 required to rule. Even on its own, the BJP was ahead in 282 seats, giving Modi the most decisive mandate for an Indian prime minister in 30 years. A total of 543 seats are up for grabs in India’s parliament.
“Modi wave” has crashed to Congress- headed by Sonia and Rahul Gandhi- its worst performance with less than 50 seats after 10 years in power.
The triumph capped an amazing run for the 63-year-old chief minister of Gujarat, who ran a high-voltage campaign that rewrote the political rulebook and caught his rivals napping.
Modi, ran high-voltage campaign won from both Vadodara and Varanasi. The BJP alliance swept the electorally key state of Uttar Pradesh, leading or winning in a stunning 72 out of 80 seats, its campaign orchestrated by Modi’s right hand man Amit Shah. Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party, which runs the state government, was winning just a handful of seats. In Bihar, the party led in 28 out of 40 seats, and in the nation’s capital, the BJP was leading in all seven.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which stunned observers by winning the Delhi assembly last year, made an encouraging Lok Sabha debut, leading in a handful of seats in Punjab. But its chief, Arvind Kejriwal, fell well short of Modi in Varanasi.