- Title: PM Modi's party on course for landslide in India's most populous state
- Date: 11th March 2017
- Summary: HARIDWAR, UTTARAKHAND, INDIA (MARCH 11, 2017) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (ANI - NO ACCESS BBC) VARIOUS OF MEMBERS OF BJP'S WOMEN WING IN NORTHERN UTTARAKHAND PROVINCE, DANCING AND DAUBING EACH OTHER WITH COLOUR
- Embargoed: 25th March 2017 09:09
- Keywords: victoty results Narendra Modi relection
- Location: LUCKNOW, UTTAR PRADESH/AMRITSAR, PUNJAB/HARIDWAR, DEHRADUN, UTTARAKHAND/IMPHAL, MANIPUR/PANAJI, GOA, INDIA
- City: LUCKNOW, UTTAR PRADESH/AMRITSAR, PUNJAB/HARIDWAR, DEHRADUN, UTTARAKHAND/IMPHAL, MANIPUR/PANAJI, GOA, INDIA
- Country: India
- Topics: Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
- Reuters ID: LVA00267ILP39
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS CONVERTED 4:3 MATERIAL
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party was on course for a landslide victory in India's most important battleground state, early returns showed on Saturday (March 11), in a personal triumph that will strengthen his claim to a second term as national leader.
Wresting control of Uttar Pradesh would be a ringing endorsement of Modi's stewardship of Asia's third-largest economy after his high-risk decision last November to scrap high-value banknotes worth 86 percent of the cash in circulation.
Though premature to call the final outcome, the Election Commission of India said Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was leading in 301 of the 403 seats in the northern state, which if confirmed by results would give it the biggest majority scored by any party in the state since 1980.
Almost four in ten voters backed the BJP based on early counting, the election commission said, close to the party's vote share in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 national election when it won the biggest national majority in three decades.
Modi threw himself into the Uttar Pradesh campaign after his party got off to a slow start, addressing dozens of rallies and turning the contest into a test of his personal popularity and his radical move to abolish big banknotes to rein in corruption.
Celebrations erupted outside BJP offices in state capital Lucknow, with party workers dancing in the streets and splashing each other with coloured paints.
Early results for four other state elections put the BJP ahead in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand and behind in Manipur in the northeast. In the coastal state of Goa, the BJP was running neck and neck with the opposition Congress party.
Congress was ahead in Punjab state, trends showed, offering at least some consolation after Rahul Gandhi, heir apparent to the party leadership, failed again to make an impact.
In Uttar Pradesh, a largely poor and agricultural state of 220 million people, Modi pitched himself as a man on the side of the poor prepared to hit the corrupt rich hard with his demonetisation drive.
Critics accuse his party of stirring communal tensions to shore up votes among its core Hindu base.
None of the BJP's opponents, including an alliance between Congress and the ruling Samajwadi Party, managed a vote share above 23 percent, partial official returns showed.
The election decimates the field of credible opponents who could halt Modi's march to a second term at the 2019 general election.
Victory in Uttar Pradesh will also make it easier to overcome resistance to the BJP's legislative agenda in the upper house of parliament, where the ruling party is in the minority. - Copyright Holder: ANI (India)
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