After a long and arduous election, with months of campaigning and voting spread over seven phases, India’s 879 million voters have spoken. And, if not with one voice, then close to it. The Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been handed another historic mandate. Modi’s 2014 victory was already record-setting — the first time a single party had attained a parliamentary majority in three decades. While every vote hasn’t yet been counted, it seems that he might equal or even surpass that figure this year. To win once at that scale was astounding, a black swan event. To win twice means that Indian politics, and India itself, has changed beyond recognition. Modi’s successive victories mark another era of Indian politics. No other political chieftains are holding the balance of power; only Modi matters. Modi is the perfect representative for the young, aspirational, majoritarian, impatient Indians who have put him into office twice now His triumph isn’t merely a product of political management. It is a rhetorical and ideological battle, a culture war, which they have won.
HISTORIC VICTORY FOR NARENDRA MODI
