The Bharatiya Janata Party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won the most number of seats but has fallen short of securing a majority. India has 543 seats in the lower house and 272 is the magic number to claim a majority. Though the saffron party has secured a large number of votes, the results have not been as per the exit poll claims of PM Modi and almost all media outlets. Ever since the election campaign began, the BJP had been claiming to secure 400 seats. For this, the slogan of Abki Baar 400 Paar was given by the BJP. However, this slogan did not go down well with the voters, at least in Uttar Pradesh where the BJP was confident of securing a majority of the Lok Sabha seats.
As the world’s most populous democracy went to polls in seven phases from April 20 to June 1, the world media covered it extensively. Let’s take a look at what the world media, including Pakistan’s Dawn, UK’s BBC, Qatar-based Al Jazeera and the US’ New York Times, reported. Pakistan-based Dawn news portal published a long article with the headline that India election vote count shows Modi alliance headed for majority.
Chinese mouthpiece Global Times published an opinion piece with the header Dragon and Elephant Can Dance Together? Here, dragon means China while elephant means India. American media New York Times wrote as its header- India election results are blow to Modi. RT News, a Russian media outlet, described Indian election as its lead surprise as opposition stands up to challenge Modi. According to official figures, about 970 million people – more than 10% of the world’s population were eligible to vote and the voter turnout averaged 66%.
