NDTV's poll of polls — an aggregate of exit polls — has tipped Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party to nearly replicate its triumph of 2014 polls and comfortably clinch a second straight term in power.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), according to the poll of polls, is set to win 302 seats, while the Congress and co will have to suffice with victories in merely 122 constituencies.
After West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Indian Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu has also come out doubting the accuracy of exit polls.
Following reports that most exit polls were indicating a victory for Modi's BJP, Naidu warned that such surveys are not reliable measures to gauge poll outcomes.
"Exit polls do not mean exact polls. We have to understand that. Since 1999, most of the exit polls have gone wrong." — M. Venkaiah Naidu
Violent clashes broke out in India's eastern state of West Bengal again on Sunday in the final phase of the staggered election that will decide whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi returns for a second term.
The police, according to AFP used batons to break up skirmishes between supporters of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the regional Trinamool Congress party in Kankinara, on the outskirts of state capital Kolkata.
Several crude bombs were also exploded during the clashes, the police said.
After exit polls tipped the Bharatiya Janata Party to win a second straight term in Indian elections, West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee urged the opposition parties to not put too faith in such surveys and instead "fight this battle together".
"I don’t trust Exit Poll gossip. The game plan is to manipulate or replace thousands of EVMs through this gossip. I appeal to all Opposition parties to be united, strong and bold. We will fight this battle together." — Mamata Banerjee
Voting ended on Sunday in India's most acrimonious election in decades that will decide whether Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi gets a second term in power.
As the final polling booths closed, a huge security cordon was thrown around the voting machines and boxes of paper votes used in the 542 seats for the world's biggest election before the official count starts on Thursday.
Tens of thousands of police and paramilitaries on duty in West Bengal state were a symbol of the mounting tensions between Modi's right wing Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition during the six weeks of voting.
Long queues formed outside polling stations in the eastern state but the BJP and its rivals again accused each other of using violence, fraud and intimidation.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling alliance is likely to win a majority in parliament, two exit polls showed today after voting ended.
Modi’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is projected to win 287 seats in the 545-member lower house of parliament followed by 128 for the Congress party-led opposition alliance, CVoter exit poll said.
To rule a party needs the support of 272 lawmakers. Votes are to be counted on Thursday. Exit polls have a mixed record in a country with an electorate of 900 million people.
According to another poll released by Times Now television Modi’s alliance is likely to get 306 seats, a clear majority.
Voting for the marathon seven-phase national elections to constitute the 17th Lok Sabha has ended and will be followed by exit polls, Hindustan Times reported.
The election process, spread over a staggering 71 days and 7 phases, was one of the most-acrimoniously fought with the National Democratic Alliance led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a second term in office and the Opposition attempting to dent its chances.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke the internet with images that showed him wrapped in saffron robes, meditating in an austere cave near the Kedarnath shrine in Uttarakhand.
The Rudra cave is located one kilometre from the Kedarnath shrine. The tariff was slashed from Indian Rupee 3,000 a day to Rs990 this year, and the first five guests in the cave will be allowed complimentary stays, the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam’s general manager BL Rana told the Hindustan Times.
Read more here.
"Polling is over. Now we can say that the 'pilgrimage' of the PM in the last two days is an unacceptable use of religion and religious symbols to influence the voting," Member of Parliament P Chidambaram wrote on Twitter.
"Our charge had been that the EC was sleeping on the job. Now, we can go further and say that the EC completely surrendered its independence and authority. Shame!"
"In the liberal view of things, the ongoing Lok Sabha election will decide India’s future. It will decide whether India will become a Hindu-first state with reduced civil liberties and intolerance of minorities or be dragged back to its old state of sometimes wavering secularism but a general agreement to co-habitation and tolerance."
"I want to tell my fellow liberals that it is too late. That decision has already been made," writes Samar Halarnkar for Scroll.in.
"Even if Modi fails, the Hindu view of life will predominate, civil liberties may be further eroded, and minorities will likely find themselves pushed to evolve a new contract with their country. A new government could recover some ground here, if it is determined to, by rolling back the deliberate, institutionalised misuse of the law and technology."
Read the full article here.
The Congress, the Trinamool Congress and the Telugu Desam Party has filed complaints with the Indian Election Commission alleging that media coverage of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Kedarnath visit violated the Model Code of Conduct.
Meanwhile, BJP shared more pictures of Modi on Twitter as his two-day visit to Kedarnath ended.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a total of 144 rallies and roadshows this election campaign season while Congress chief Rahul Gandhi addressed 125.
According to an NDTV report, Uttar Pradesh, a state that gave the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance or NDA 73 off 80 seats in the last Lok Sabha elections, was the Modi's top focus. He held 36 rallies and roadshows there, which is an average of one rally per 2.3 seats.
The prime minister's other big focus was West Bengal, a state where a bitter battle was fought between his BJP and Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, noted NDTV.
Meanwhile, Gandhi's four priority states were Uttar Pradsh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala.
Read the full breakdown by NDTV here.
A polling booth in Kalpa village, Himachal Pradesh, rolled out the red carpet honouring Shyam Saran Negi, the 102-year-old voter, who became the 'first' Indian to vote in the General elections of 1952, reported Times of India.
"All the abuse and misconduct claims suggest that standards in Indian politics have slipped badly," Asit Banerjee, a history teacher in Kolkata, said as he queued to vote.
"Endless mudslinging and bitter comments pervaded the campaign. We are losing hope in democracy, it is time for a reset," the 60-year-old told AFP.
Writing in the Hindustan Times, political commentator Karan Thapar said Modi's message "played on our insecurities and strummed upon our deep inner fears". He also criticised Gandhi's campaign.
Crude bombs were hurled at two places in West Bengal, where polling is underway in nine constituencies, Hindustan Times reported.
Reports of bombs thrown in Gilaberia area in Deganga and in Raidighi came in as voters queued up in polling booths, it added.
There were allegations that BJP supporters were beaten up and its camp office vandalised.
Read the full report here.
Rahul Gandhi, vying to become the latest prime minister from India's most famous dynasty, has worked hard to shed his image as an entitled footloose princeling and political lightweight.
But the great-grandson, grandson and son of three past premiers of the world's biggest democracy still faces a tough task beating Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the elections.
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Stern, sharp and shrewd, Narendra Modi fought his way off the streets to become one of India's most popular and polarising prime ministers.
There is no middle ground between admirers and adversaries of the man — now running for a second term — who helped his father run a railway station tea stall before launching his career in nationalist politics.
The 68-year-old makes much of his humble roots while unashamedly portraying himself as the tough guy protecting India's national security and Hindu values, pressing its claims to be the world's rising power.
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Indians are voting in the seventh and final phase of national elections, wrapping up a 6-week-long long, gruelling campaign season with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party seeking reelection for another five years.
The last round of election includes 59 constituencies in eight states.
Up for grabs are 13 seats in Punjab and an equal number in Uttar Pradesh, eight each in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, four in Himachal Pradesh and three in Jharkhand and Chandigarh.
The voting also covers Modi's constituency of Varanasi, a holy Hindu city where he was elected in 2014. The election is seen as a referendum on Modi's five-year rule. He has adopted a nationalist pitch in trying to win votes from the country's Hindu majority by projecting a tough stance against Pakistan.
The Congress and other opposition parties are challenging him over a high unemployment rate of 6.1 per cent and farmers' distress aggravated by low crop prices.
Counting of votes is scheduled for May 23.
Any political party hoping to win a majority in the Indian parliament needs to "perform very well in UP (Uttar Pradesh)", says Ashok Upadhyay, a political scientist at Banaras Hindu University.
UP — a poverty-stricken melting pot of over 200 million people — has 80 parliamentary seats and is the biggest prize of the Indian elections. Both BJP and Congress, India's major parties, are hoping to win as many seats in UP as possible in order to win the elections.
Read more about UP's electoral importance here.
Oxford Dictionaries was dragged into India’s bitter election on Thursday as it rubbished a claim that “Modilie” — referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi — is a recognised word.
Rahul Gandhi, Modi’s main challenger in the election, tweeted what he said was a screen shot of an online dictionary entry for the word combining the words Modi and lie. “There’s a new word in the English Dictionary. Attached is a snapshot of the entry :),” the scion of India’s Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty wrote in a post forwarded almost 10,000 times.
The image used a similar font, layout and logo to Oxford Dictionaries’ website, but did not use the word Oxford. Oxford Dictionaries replied on its verified Twitter account. “We can confirm that the image showing the entry ‘Modilie’ is fake and does not exist in any of our Oxford Dictionaries,” it said.
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India’s Election Commission cut off campaigning early in the eastern state of West Bengal after days of clashes in the final stretch of the country’s marathon elections, a drastic and unprecedented action in the world’s largest democracy.
The three-member body said in the order on Thursday that “growing incidents of disruption and violence” were creating a “fear psychosis” among voters, and ordered campaigning to cease by 10pm on Thursday, a day before it had been scheduled to end.
Normally campaigns run up to 48 hours before polls open, according to Indian law.
Read more here.
Do you know how political parties are aligned in India's ongoing elections?
Find out here.
With a white beard neatly trimmed and a sleeveless jacket thrown over his traditional Indian shirt, Abhinandan Pathak turns heads thanks to an uncanny resemblance to the country's Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
While he looks like Modi, Pathak is contesting the election as an independent candidate against the BJP.
Read more here.
An overall voter turnout of 62.86 per cent was recorded till 8:30pm local time as polling concluded in the sixth phase of Lok Sabha elections, according to the Indian Election Commission.
Among the seven states where voting was held today, West Bengal witnessed the highest voter turnout at 80.16pc while Uttar Pradesh saw the lowest estimated turnout at 54.29pc. The figure recorded in the capital Delhi was 58.45pc.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi said it was "very clear" that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would be defeated in the election as people were "angry and distressed" and would express their sentiment through their votes, NDTV reported.
"It is very clear that the BJP government is going," she was quoted as saying.
Gandhi cast her vote on Sunday morning along with her husband Rober Vadra.
He has been smeared with chilli powder and slapped, but Delhi's chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, will still be leading the fight against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Sunday's penultimate round of the Indian election.
Fifty-nine seats are up for grabs across the country on the sixth voting day of the marathon ballot.
The tussle for the capital will be front and centre, with all eyes on Kejriwal, whose Aam Aadmi Party was formed just seven years ago amid outrage over corruption.
It has since taken control of Delhi's regional government and is fighting to add to its four seats in India's lower house of parliament.
Modi's right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be trying to stave off the onslaught and keep the seven seats it currently holds.
Find out more here.
111-year-old Bachan Singh cast his vote at a polling station in Tilak Vihar, Delhi, in the 6th phase of India's massive election.
He hasn't missed voting in an election since 1951. Until the last election, the centenarian had cycled himself to his polling booth to vote, but this year he arrived in a car and was wheeled into the polling booth using a chair, NDTV reported. Singh had suffered a paralysis attack some three months ago which left him bedridden.
Today, he said, he would vote "for those who worked for us". Interestingly, Singh is unaware of the existence of the Aam Aadmi Party, led by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
His son Jasbeer says: "For him, every election has been a contest between the BJP and the Congress."
Voters in Delhi and elsewhere in India's north lined up early on Sunday to cast their ballots in the second-to-last round of a seven-phase general election, with the opposition seeking a united stand to deny Prime Minister Narendra Modi a second term.
More than 100 million people across seven states are eligible to vote in the sixth phase of the 39-day-long poll, which Modi began on April 11 as front-runner after an escalation of tension with neighbouring Pakistan.
But diverse opposition parties have recently taken heart at what they see as signs Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may be losing ground and have begun negotiations over a post-election alliance even before polling ends on May 19. Votes will be counted on May 23.
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The cover story of Time magazine's May 20 issue has criticised the Indian Prime Minister as "India's divider in chief". The story, written by novelist Aatish Taseer says:
“Not only has Modi’s economic miracle failed to materialise, he has also helped create an atmosphere of poisonous religious nationalism in India [...] Basic norms and civility have been so completely vitiated that Modi can no longer control the direction of the violence.”
A public interest petition in the Bombay High Court has pointed out that two million electronic voting machines (EVMs) that the manufacturers affirm to have delivered are “missing” from the possession of India’s Election Commission, the leading Frontline magazine claimed on Thursday.
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India’s top court on Thursday threw out a petition seeking to bar Rahul Gandhi from contesting the ongoing general election over claims he is secretly British.
The 48-year-old scion of India’s Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty is the main challenger to Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is seeking a second term in office after storming to power in 2014.
Opponents of Gandhi accuse him of lying about his nationality and allege that he holds British citizenship, citing annual returns filed by a now-defunct British company in which he was once a director.
India does not allow dual nationality and only Indian citizens can contest elections.
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India's once-vibrant communist parties are in danger of falling off the political map in this month's general elections as voters lose their revolutionary fervour.
From 61 parliamentary seats and a key role in a coalition government formed in 2004, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its hard left allies slumped to just 10 seats in the 2014 election.
CPM leader Sitaram Yechury acknowledged that the left cannot afford another fall as he lobbied for precious votes in the last communist bastion of southern Kerala state.
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India’s major opposition parties were denied an appeal by the Supreme Court on Tuesday to increase the paper trail in the electronic voting machines, which they insist can be manipulated.
The court rejected the review petition filed by 21 parties, led by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, to re-examine its judgement rejecting 50 per cent random physical verification of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) using Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).
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Shortly before India's mammoth elections began in April, New Delhi did something unprecedented ─ it banned civilian traffic on the only major highway connecting the heart of Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK) with India.
The government cited unspecified security threats for the twice-weekly ban, but the move is symptomatic of the heavy handed approach Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have taken in the occupied region since taking power in 2014.
Gone are the carrot-and-stick methods of previous governments that saw ─ at least ─ attempts to win the hearts and minds of Kashmiris as a key part of maintaining security in the Muslim-majority occupied territory.
Modi's government has, instead, given the military a free hand to counter resistance to Indian rule, which means it has taken aim not just at freedom fighters but also regular citizens supporting the freedom cause.
Find out more here.
Two constituencies in the vote-rich state of Uttar Pradesh are seeing opposition Congress party president Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi trying to retain their seats.
Rahul Gandhi is seeking re-election for a fourth consecutive time in Amethi. He's the son of assassinated former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi's widow, Sonia Gandhi, is running from neighboring Rae Bareli. Both constituencies are considered Congress party bastions.
A complete shutdown is being observed in Indian occupied South Kashmir's Shopian and Pulwama districts on Monday against the fifth phase of the Indian elections, Kashmir Media Service reported.
The Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) had called for a shutdown and boycott of India's election in Pulwama and Shopian districts today.
All businesses are closed and traffic is off the roads, KMS reported, adding that stringent security measures have also been put into place.
Additionally, mobile internet services have also been suspended in the region and train services between Baramulla and Banihal have been cancelled.
Voter turnout across India is registered at around 11.78pc voter turnout until 9am.
Data collected by Hindustan Times from the Indian Election Commission's Voter Turnout app.
Amethi, the family borough of India's main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi in Uttar Pradesh, also votes today.
Gandhi, who has focused on attacking Modi's economic policies, is seeking to become the fourth member of his family to take the prime minister's office. He has pledged to end abject poverty by 2030 and give cash transfers to 50 million families.
On Friday, Gandhi penned an emotional letter to the people of Amethi seeking support for his bid for a fourth straight term from the city, amid accusations that BJP supporters were giving cash handouts to voters.
"Vote in large numbers to bring back this member of the family," Gandhi, 48, wrote.
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BJP's Gul Mohammad Mir was gunned down in his house in Anantnag, Indian-occupied Kashmir.
The killing in Anantnag district is the latest in a string of attacks to have marred the election which began last month. Political killings are common in India's bitterly-fought elections with party and regional rivalries often boiling over.
The National Crime Records Bureau says there were more than 100 political murders in 2016. Kerala state in the south and Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the north are the worst for political murders. The world's biggest election has been mostly targeted by far-left Maoist rebels.
Find out more here.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was given a clean chit by the Election Commission on Thursday for his comment that India has nuclear weapons and does not care about Pakistan’s threats, NDTV said on Thursday.
The comment, the Election Commission said, does not violate the Model Code of Conduct — a set of dos and don’ts for political parties and the government ahead of elections.
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