Lok Sabha Election Results 2024: Counting Underway, Nation Awaits Outcome
The wait is over! The counting to determine the winners of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 has begun. Postal ballots will be counted first, with initial trends expected by 9 AM. A confirmation on the people’s mandate is anticipated by 11 AM. The strong rooms have been opened, and EVMs have arrived at the tables. Tight security has been arranged at all counting centers.
The world’s largest election could also be one of its most consequential. Voters are choosing 543 members for the lower house of Parliament for a five-year term. India has close to 970 million voters among its more than 1.4 billion people, and its general election pits Prime Minister Narendra Modi against a broad alliance of opposition parties struggling to catch up. Votes were cast at more than a million polling stations. Each of the seven voting phases lasted a single day, with several constituencies across multiple states voting that day. The staggered polling allowed the government to transport election officials and voting machines and deploy tens of thousands of troops to prevent violence. Candidates crisscrossed the country, poll workers hiked to remote villages, and voters lined up for hours in sweltering heat.
Millions of Indians are waiting anxiously as the election authority prepares to count 642 million votes polled in the national election during a grueling six-week period. Supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist party are already in a celebratory mood, with exit polls predicting a massive win and a third term for Modi as India’s prime minister. Most exit polls project that Modi is set to extend his decade in power with a third consecutive term, especially after he opened a Hindu temple in northern Ayodhya city in January, fulfilling his party’s long-held Hindu nationalist pledge. During the polls, Modi escalated polarizing rhetoric in incendiary speeches targeting the country’s Muslim minority. India’s Chief Election Commissioner, Rajiv Kumar, stated that 642 million voters exercising their right in India was a world record, calling it “a miracle.”
