ASIA / PACIFIC
May 19, 2014
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 5
Landslide win for Indian opposition party
LANDSLIDE VICTORY. Opposition leader and
India’s next prime minister, Narendra Modi, sits with
his 90-year-old mother Hiraben during a visit to seek
her blessings after election results showed his party
won national elections in a landslide, in Gandhinagar,
in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The 63-year-old
Modi is widely seen as the darling of India’s corporate
world and a decisive, 21st-century administrator ex-
pected to revive job creation and economic growth.
Modi’s singular message on the economy has helped
him ignore or beat back criticism of his personal life,
including his strong links to a right-wing Hindu nation-
alist group, as well as his four-decade marriage to a
retired school teacher he had never mentioned pub-
licly until last month. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)
By Muneeza Naqvi and
Elizabeth A. Kennedy
The Associated Press
EW DELHI — India’s opposition
leader, Narendra Modi, will
become the next prime minister of
the world’s largest democracy, winning the
most decisive election victory the country
has seen in three decades and sweeping
the long-dominant Congress party from
power.
Modi, a career politician whose cam-
paign promised a revival of economic
growth, will have a strong mandate to
govern at a time of profound changes in
Indian society. He also has said he wants
to strengthen India’s strategic partnership
with the United States. But critics worry
the ascendance of his Hindu nationalist
party could worsen sectarian tensions
with India’s minority 138 million Muslims.
The results were a crushing defeat for
the Congress party, which is deeply
entwined with the Nehru-Gandhi political
dynasty that has been at the center of
Indian politics for most of the country’s
post-independence history. The party, led
by outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh, has been plagued by repeated
corruption scandals and a poor economy.
As his overwhelming win became clear
last week, Modi appeared before a crowd of
cheering supporters and tried to strike a
conciliatory note.
“I have always said that to govern the
nation it is our responsibility to take
everyone with us,” Modi said after a
lengthy and punishing race. “I want your
blessings so that we can run a government
that carries everyone with it.”
Nevertheless, Modi remains a divisive
figure in the country of 1.2 billion people,
in large part because he, as chief minister
of Gujarat state, was in command in 2002
when communal rioting there killed more
than 1,000 people — most of them
Muslims.
Modi was accused of doing little to stop
the rampage, though he denies any
wrongdoing and has never been charged
with a crime. He was denied a U.S. visa in
2005 for alleged complicity in the riots.
U.S. President Barack Obama called
Modi last week to congratulate him on his
victory and invited him “to visit
Washington at a mutually agreeable time
to further strengthen our bilateral
relationship,” the White House said in a
statement. The U.S. administration had
watched Modi’s rise carefully, and in
February, for the first time in Modi’s
decade-long tenure as the top official in
Gujarat state, the American ambassador
met with him.
In India, the question now is whether
Modi can be a truly secular leader in a
country with many faiths. The Congress
party tried to highlight the 2002 riots
during the campaign, but Modi’s
momentum — and laser focus on the ailing
economy — carried him to victory.
There was a record turnout in the
election, with 66.38 percent of India’s 814
million eligible voters casting ballots
during the six-week contest, which began
April 7 and was held in stages across the
country. Turnout in the 2009 general
N
election was 58.13 percent.
The last time any single party won a
majority in India was in 1984, when an
emotional nation gave the Congress party
a staggering victory of more than 400 seats
following the assassination of then-Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi.
But 30 years later, India is now in the
throes of rapid urbanization and
globalization just as the youth population
is skyrocketing. Many new voters are far
less deferential to traditional voting
patterns focused on family lineage and
caste. For young Indian voters, the
priorities are jobs and development, which
Modi put at the forefront of his campaign.
Sreeram Chaulia, a political analyst and
dean of the Jindal School of International
Affairs, said the BJP’s image as a purely
capitalist, pro-business party resonated
across India. That image contrasts with
Congress, which is considered more of a
welfare party, mixing capitalist reforms
with handouts for the poor.
“A lot of ordinary people believed in
(Modi’s) message and wanted to give him
the strong mandate he was seeking, to see
if he could really change things in India,”
Chaulia said. “There has been growth in
the middle class, so of course why have
they punished the incumbents? Because
they want more, obviously, something
more than subsistence. They want upward
mobility.”
The BJP has promised to change tough
labor laws that make foreign manufac-
turers reluctant to set up factories in
India. Manufacturing makes up only 15
percent of India’s economy, compared to 31
percent
in
China.
Attracting
manufacturing investment is key to
creating jobs for the 13 million young
Indians entering the workforce each year,
and foreign investors have been pouring
billions of dollars into Indian stocks and
bonds in anticipation of a Modi victory.
Although he focused strongly on the
economy, Modi has given some hints of his
foreign policy leanings, saying the BJP
wants to build on the foundations laid by
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the last BJP prime
minister. Vajpayee, who governed from
1998 to 2004, rode a bus across the border
to Pakistan in what was seen as a bold step
in trying to mend ties with India’s
longtime enemy.
Modi said during the campaign that
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India did not want a war with regional
giant China but that his government
would be prepared to deal with what he
called Beijing’s possible expansionist
designs.
The election came at a low ebb for the
Congress party, which has been in power
for all but 10 years of the country’s history
since independence in 1947.
The leader of the Congress campaign,
43-year-old Rahul Gandhi, failed to inspire
public confidence. He was seen as
ambivalent at best over winning a job held
previously by his father, grandmother,
and great-grandfather.
“I wish the new government all the
best,” Gandhi told reporters, adding that
he held himself responsible for the party’s
losses.
Immediately after his appearance, his
mother, Sonia Gandhi, the president of the
party, took the microphone and said she
assumes responsibility.
The two took no questions after their
brief remarks, and Rahul trailed his
mother off the stage.
Rahul Gandhi, who first won a seat in
parliament in 2004, has been viewed as
prime-minister-in-waiting for his entire
political career, though he never appeared
comfortable in the role. When he finally
gave the first television interview earlier
this year, it made for dull, uninspiring
viewing full of vague promises.
In sharp contrast to the street parties
outside the BJP office, a sober scene played
out in front of the Congress headquarters,
where few showed up despite barricades
erected to protect supporters from passing
road traffic.
Modi, 63, promised a fresh start in India,
noting that he is the first Indian prime
minister born after independence from
Britain in 1947.
“I would like to reassure the nation that
while we did not get to fight and die for
independence, we have the honor of living
for this nation,” Modi said. “Now is not the
time to die for the nation but to live for it.”
Associated Press writers Ashok Sharma
and Katy Daigle contributed to this report.
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