India: With a closer-than-expected victory, Modi secures a third term in India after a decade of popularity and polarization

Ten years after he became prime minister, Narendra Modi declared himself the winner of the Indian elections on Tuesday, although with a narrower than expected victory that will force him to depend on his political allies.

With the count still unfolding, the alliance of parties led by Modi reached the threshold of 272 seats needed to form a government.

But the prime minister’s Hindu nationalist BJP party lost its absolute parliamentary majority and is expected to end the elections with 240 of the existing 543 seats, far less than the target of 400 seats set during the election campaign.

The INDIA opposition coalition has performed much better than expected, winning 193 seats so far across the country, with a particularly strong showing in the south.

The preliminary results of this election, which started on April 19 and ran until June 1, give Modi a third term in which You will have to depend on your allies.

But how did Modi manage to become the most popular leader India has had in decades?

In Modi’s constituency, located within the northeastern Indian city of Varanasi, Shiv Johri Patel makes a living weaving sari, a traditional Indian dress.

He admits that he has many concerns, but adds that For a long time he had been clear about who he would give his vote to..

“Modi has done a great job. Under no other government did the poor get so many social benefits,” he says.

Patel adds that his children have a hard time finding work and that he was scammed out of a welfare payment he received from the federal government, but he doesn’t blame the prime minister.

“I don’t care if they give me what they owe me, I’ll still vote for him“he tells the BBC.

At 73, Modi remains a hugely popular but equally polarizing figure, both in India and abroad.

Its supporters claim that it is a solid and efficient leader who has kept his promises.

His critics allege that his government has weakened federal institutions and cracked down on dissent and press freedom.

They also accuse him of belittling the Muslim minority in the country, who they say feels threatened under his rule.

“Modi has big fans and critics. You either like him or you don’t,” explains political analyst Ravindra Reshme.

Opinion polls put Modi comfortably ahead of his rivals, but they have been wrong several times in the past. This time, it seems they were wrong again. Modi has not received the overwhelming support that was expected.

Although he will not obtain the supermajority he expected, Modi is his party’s biggest attraction.

In India, his face can be seen everywhere: at bus stops, billboards and newspaper ads, and at televised election rallies.

When the country hosted the G20 summit last year, New Delhi was awash with posters of it welcoming world leaders.

The organizer of the event and his presidency are usually rotated each year, but the advertising campaign appeared to show that India had won the presidency thanks to Modi’s efforts.

“Modi turned it into a mega event. In many ways, he understands what an event is about and how it should be used,” Santosh Desaim, an advertising campaign expert, told the BBC.

Modi and his team have an excellent understanding of what it means to have a brand and have narrative control.

It is very visible, but It is rare that journalists or ordinary citizens can ask him difficult questions.

Since becoming prime minister he has not given a press conference in India, while the interviews he gives are few and he is rarely questioned.

RK Upadhya, a political analyst, explains that to become prime minister, Modi had to overcome the media’s image of him as “the one responsible for the Gujarat riots.”

A Supreme Court-appointed panel later found no evidence that Modi was complicit in the 2002 violence when he was the state’s ruler.

More than 1,000 people diedmostly Muslims.

Upadhya explains that after that he wanted to show the media that he did not need them and that he could get the support of the people without their help.

And that he did. Today he is the politician with the most followers on Instagram in the world and has 97.5 million followers on X.

Its base is not only digital: it also shares its reflections on a radio program that airs monthly.

Almost all of his public interactions seem carefully choreographed.

Over the last decade, photos have been published of him inaugurating a huge number of projects, meeting with his supporters, snorkeling and even meditating in a cave after the 2019 election campaign.

Modi, who never misses an opportunity to connect directly with people, has reached out to younger Indians and given awards to very popular and influential people.

At a recent event in the state of Kerala, he said a couple of sentences in Malayalam, the local language, which caused a huge wave of applause.

Political analyst Sandeep Shastri assures that there is a lot of symbolism in many of the things that Modi does and that the media transmit.

“The place you choose to spend your holidays, the festivals you attend,” adds Shastri.

Visits abroad, including routine ones, are widely broadcast by national media and celebrated at home.

He gives speeches amid huge overseas congregations led by the diaspora and those images are repeatedly played on national television as proof of his global popularity.

But in Varanasi, not everyone is so happy.

Little has changed in recent decades in Lohta, a Muslim-majority neighborhood where we saw drains and crumbling infrastructure.

Nawab Khan, who lives in Lohta, says weavers like him have become poorer in the last 10 years.

“The only way to prosper is to be a BJP supporter (…) Those who buy saris have become richer, and those who make them (who are predominantly Muslim) have become poorer,” he alleges.

Dileep Patel, a BJP member, rejects persistent accusations that Muslims are being marginalized or that the government discriminates against them.

Ensures that social assistance plans are distributed fairly.

He also blames opponents for “scaring our Muslim brothers and sisters” before Modi came to power in 2014.

“Since then, they are not afraid and their trust in the BJP is increasing day by day,” he continued.

However, in the last 10 years there have been numerous attacks against Muslims by right-wing groups, many of them deadly, and anti-Muslim hate speech has skyrocketed.

“When India and Pakistan were divided, our ancestors rejected the call of Muhammad Ali Jinnah (founder of Pakistan) and stayed in this country. We too have given our blood to build this country. Yet they treat us like second class citizens“says Athar Jamal Lari, who is competing against Modi in Varanasi.

And in recent weeks, some of that sentiment seemed to resurface in the midst of the BJP’s campaign. Modi himself has been accused of using divisive and Islamophobic language, especially at election rallies, although he denies this.

It’s not just residents of Lohta, Varanasi’s predominantly Muslim neighborhood, who feel they are getting a raw deal.

Residents in other parts of the prime minister’s constituency are still waiting to see some positive change.

In the village of Chetavani, just a few kilometers from Kakrahiya, we met dozens of people living in dusty shacks.

“Local officials evicted us from our homes and brought us here. We can’t even get drinking water here,” says 26-year-old Rajinder.

Still, he says he will continue to vote for Modi.

Like Shiv Johri Patel, the sari weaver, many people here are angry with local officials, but not with the prime minister.

At first glance, Kakrahiya is very different: it has an air of relative prosperity and there is running water.

“Now we have toilets, gas cylinders and houses,” explains Chiraunji, sitting in the kitchen of her half-built house. She claims that she admires Modi.

He was given a free cooking gas cylinder thanks to a government scheme, but He says he can’t fill it frequently..

One of Modi’s biggest challenges, analysts say, is creating quality jobs for India’s burgeoning young population.

Modi has been helped by absence of strong opposition and coherent that challenges it at the national level.

When he looked vulnerable, they didn’t know how to take advantage of it.

His government has been criticized for its management during the Covid pandemic and the opposition also accuses it of crony capitalism, alleging that it favors some large business families.

However, his opponents have largely failed to land their punches, and these controversies do not seem to matter to his many followers.

“A big part of Modi’s image management is making sure he is never associated with a negative outcome that can be attributed to someone else or other factors,” Sircar says.

Modi’s supporters praise him because he “never rests.”

Its incessant programs and constant media coverage consolidate the impression that you are always working.

Shastri says that when Modi came to power in 2014, the previous government was seen as “ineffective.”

However, Sircar points out that a big challenge facing the BJP is that it is heavily dependent on a small number of states mainly in northern India.

Modi has been working hard to make progress in the south: in the run-up to the elections, he visited the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala several times and held large rallies.

But in recent months, the opposition has been more united and coherent in its messages.

And this appears to have had an impact on the results of a crucial election.

Additional reporting by Anshul Verma and Zubair Ahmed

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