BJP Prime Minister Narendra Modi declares victory in the India parliament: “A victory for the world’s largest democracy,” the media reported

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s coalition won more than half of the seats in the country’s election and he declared a victory.

The National Democratic Alliance “is going to form the government for the third time, we are grateful to the people,” Modi said in a speech at the headquarters of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in New Delhi. “This is a victory for the world’s largest democracy.”

Modi’s alliance had set a bullish target to win 400 out of 543 parliamentary seats. According to India’s election commission it is leading with over 300 seats. The coalition of opposition parties picked up 233 seats in India despite predictions to the contrary.

As early trends showed the alliance wouldn’t get a resounding victory, only a small group of supporters had gathered at the headquarters of the party. While one loudly sang hymns to a cut-out of Prime Minister Modi in front of TV cameras, the mood was relatively somber.

India’s stock market, meanwhile, plunged to a four-year low, Reuters reported, on news that the governing alliance was winning by a narrower margin than expected, which could make it harder to pass its legislation.

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The income tax department had frozen the accounts of the Congress party because of their unpaid dues, and India’s top investigators had lodged charges against several opposition leaders for money-laundering.

The focus of the campaign was economic growth, welfare programs and India’s rise on the world stage. The party has not tamed high inflation and unemployment in its decade in power, but several voters told NPR that Modi rose above his government’s failures.

In his campaign speeches, Modi accused the Congress party of conspiring to steal wealth of the majority Hindus and distribute it among the minority Muslims, whom he called “intruders” and “those with more children.” The election commission decided to hold the party presidents responsible for transgressions of their star campaigners after several complaints by opposition parties.

The opposition INDIA alliance — a coalition of two dozen parties led by the Congress — had pitched the election as a fight to save the country’s constitution. Despite one key partner defecting before the polls, the Congress and strong regional parties helped the alliance pick up more seats than predicted. A key victory was in the bellwether state of Uttar Pradesh, where the opposition coalition was leading in nearly half the seats it had lost to the BJP in 2019. The Hindu temple in Faizabad is a subject of controversy.

Modi started his victory speech on Tuesday evening with the salutation to a Hindu god and then he said that he would make India a developed country over the next two decades. He added that he would work with all state governments, irrespective of the party.

The opposition Congress party said that the main opposition had won seats despite the saffron party’s capture of state institutions. Its leader Rahul Gandhi then pulled out a copy of the Indian Constitution and said the mandate was the “first step” in preventing Modi from attempting to change it.

The era of coalition politics is back, and the results of this elections show that the one party domination model won’t work anymore. “It also means that the BJP will have to put contentious ideological issues in cold storage, like the uniform civil code or simultaneous elections for state assembly and the Parliament.”

Kapil Komireddi, author of Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India, warns that the BJP could “poach” elected lawmakers from other parties — “an art they have perfected.”

If it does happen, the prime minister can be back in charge of a majority government. Everyone in his own party knows that the magic has waned.

Millions of people in India were horrified by the election results and worried about their commitment to secular democracy.