IN Hindu India, general elections are held under the sitting government and not under a caretaker set-up. In Muslim Pakistan, nobody believes fair elections can be held by an incumbent government,t and elections are held under a caretaker government.

In India, there are 900 million voters — four times Pakistan’s population — and it is the biggest election in the world held in seven stages spread almost a month. However, there is no complaint saying that, during this period, the ballot boxes have been changed or the results altered. After polling, results are announced and elections are — generally — considered fair and the results accepted.

In the Indian general elections, the leader of the main opposition party, Rahul Gandhi, soon after the results announcement, accepted his defeat and resigned from his position (although his resignation has not been accepted by the party leader). In Pakistan, the losing parties and their leaders do not accept defeat and call the winning leader a ‘selected prime minister, and the controversy on the results continues.

The Pakistani media has attributed Narendar Modi’s win to the Pulwama incident. However, this point was not raised by Indian opposition leaders.

How will the world take the general elections in India and in Pakistan and form an opinion about the level of honesty in the two countries? The Pakistani people should learn a lesson from the Indian general elections.

Dr Munir M Hasan

Mississauga, Canada

(2)

ON the day Narendra Modi received the good news that his Hindu extremist Bharitiya Janata Party had won a landslide victory in India’s 2019 general elections, another sobering message was also given to the Indian prime minister.

Pakistan successfully tested its Shaheen-II ballistic missile. The missile is capable of carrying conventional and nuclear warheads up to a range of 1,500 kilometres. Besides the successful test of missile technology, its timing is significant.

The test is a polite warning to the jingoistic Indian prime minister to now mend his ways and forget about all the threats that he made against Pakistan during his election campaign rallies. That was election fever, this is stark reality of the Balakot misadventure variety.

Aamir Khan Wagan

Larkana

(3)

THE BJP’s victory in India’s 2019 general election is a reflection that the world’s neo-political system is moving towards chauvinism and extremism where one’s own race and nation are the best and other nations and cultures are demonised in a putrid hatred.

Narendra Modi is notorious for his bias against Indian Muslims, and he has won the election by playing the anti-Muslim card. In the true sense, the 2019 Indian election result is the defeat of liberalism and secularism in India.

Modi’s victory will bring new challenges for Pakistan. The Indian people have voted for Modi, and it is they who will be squarely to blame for the mayhem his premiership unleashes in the region.

Mujeeb Ali Samo

Larkana

(4)

THE BJP badly mauled Congress in the elections. For the first time in India, the anti-Pakistan card did well in the elections, and corporate India switched its support from Congress to the BJP. The role of the Indian media in Modi’s success cannot be denied either.

India has switched completely from Indian nationalism to exclusive Hindu nationalism and into a sectarian state.

Perhaps the only silver lining for Pakistan is that Prime Minister Imran has congratulated the BJP as he feels this party is a better option for peaceful relations between the two countries.

Raja Shafqat Ali

Larkana

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2019