India’s Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi looks strong after latest election round

India's Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi looked triumphant after voting yesterday in the world's largest election, but the man tipped to be the next prime minister is still not assured of winning an outright majority.

Some 139 million people were registered in 89 constituencies to vote in the latest round of a marathon contest pitting Mr Modi against the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty-led ruling Congress party and a pantheon of satraps. Results are due on May 16th.

Casting his vote in his home state of Gujarat, the leader whose pro-business policies have delighted investors brandished his party’s lotus symbol and taunted Congress heavyweights for shying away from the fight.

“The prime minister himself is not fighting the election. The finance minister is not fighting the election.

“All its top leaders have run away,” Modi said to cheers from a large crowd at the polling station in the state’s largest city, Ahmedabad.

He snapped a “selfie” and posted the photograph on Twitter.

It is unusual for Indian politicians to give speeches after voting and Mr Modi’s opponents complained to the election commission that his use of the party symbol broke the rules.

Mr Modi, who is standing in both the Gujarat town of Vadodara and the holy city of Varanasi, has shaken up Indian politics with an innovative campaign that has combined a massive social media outreach with up to five rallies a day. The 63-year-old has even appeared as a hologram campaigning in remote hamlets.

Opinion polls give a coalition led by Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a strong lead and predict the worst ever result for the ruling party, which led India to independence from Britain in 1947 and has dominated politics ever since.

Fall short
But most surveys predict the BJP will fall short of the 272 seats needed for a parliamentary majority, meaning it will need to find allies.

The size of the shortfall will determine whether a Modi government can pass free market reforms aimed at reviving the economy, or be constrained by protectionist allies.

The BJP “will most certainly beat the Congress”, said Nida Ali of Oxford Economics. “Now they are trying to maximise the number of seats they can get, so they are not hindered by other parties.

“If they can get a majority, that would help in decision-making.”

Market shares
Indian shares rose 6.5 per cent in 2014 through Tuesday, outperforming the 0.5 per cent drop in the MSCI emerging equities index, on expectations the industry-friendly BJP would score an emphatic win. But shares have cooled of late, as traders turn cautious ahead of election results.

India is sometimes described as a collection of countries united mainly by a common currency. The results of its elections are notoriously difficult to predict, with block voting by caste and religion. Dramatic last-minute swings can confound experts, with opinion polls getting the result wrong in 2004.

In a reminder of the difficulties in converting Modi's popularity into seats, Arun Jaitley, a possible future finance minister, risks losing a contest in the state of Punjab over anger with the state government headed by a BJP ally. – (Reuters)