India’s tough election sees millions of voters, and Prime Minister Modi’s party is expected to win a third term.

In India’s history, the election is regarded as one of the most significant. Modi will be the second Indian prime minister to hold onto office for a third term if he prevails.

TFD – As India approaches one of its most significant elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is vying for a historic third term. Explore the key moments and opposition strategies that could shape the outcome of this critical vote.

In the second-to-last round of a taxing national election, millions of Indians cast ballots on Saturday, with a united opposition attempting to destabilize Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid for a third consecutive term for himself and his Hindu nationalist party.

To avoid the scorching sun at the height of Indian summer, a large number of people gathered in front of polling places before the polls opened at 7 a.m. In the Indian capital, the afternoon high reached 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit).

Housewife Lakshmi Bansal stated, “I don’t mind voting in the heat because this election is also like a festival.”

With seven constituencies in New Delhi among the 58 that will vote on Saturday, 89.5% of the 543 seats in the lower house of Parliament will be filled. On June 1, the remaining 57 seats will be determined, capping a six-week election. On June 4, the votes will be tallied.

Among the first voters were External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and President Droupadi Murmu. In New Delhi, Sonia Gandhi, the leader of the opposition Congress party, and her son Rahul Gandhi cast ballots as well.

Mehbooba Mufti, a former senior elected official of Kashmir under Indian control, staged a protest on Saturday with her supporters, alleging that a large number of her party employees had been arrested by police in order to keep them from casting ballots. The head of the People’s Democratic Party, Mufti, who is running in the Anantnag-Rajouri district for parliament, claimed she had protested to poll officials.

One of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party candidates, Agnimitra Paul, had her car blocked by All India Trinamool Congress party activists in the state of West Bengal as she went to cast her ballot in the Medinipur constituency. In the state, the two parties are rivals, and there is often street fighting between their activists.

The chief elected official of the state and leader of the Trinamool Party, Mamta Banerjee, accused the BJP of carrying out an attack on Friday in the Purba Medinipur area that resulted in the death of one activist. According to Banerjee, several homes and businesses in the neighborhood were set on fire, as reported by the Press Trust of India news agency.

A BJP politician in the state named Suvendu Adhikari claimed on Thursday that Trinamool members had attacked and killed an activist, a claim that his opponents denied, according to PTI.

This election, which is seen as one of the most important in Indian history, will put Modi’s hold on power to the test. After Jawaharlal Nehru, the nation’s first prime minister, Modi would be the only other Indian leader to hold the position for three terms.

The BJP is up against a big opposition alliance headed by the Congress and strong regional parties; most polls indicate that the BJP will prevail. However, there are considerable concerns regarding the BJP’s predicted margin of victory due to lower than anticipated turnout in the preceding five voting rounds.

“At the start of the polls, it appeared as though Modi was leading from the front. However, a change is currently apparent, according to political expert Rasheed Kidwai. It seems that Modi’s party is concerned because the opposition is performing better than anticipated. That explains why Modi is using more strong anti-Muslim language to divide the electorate.

According to Kidwai, the opposition had put Modi to the test by focusing its campaign on social justice and the rise in unemployment, which had brought the fight closer than anticipated.

Like a presidential contest, Modi’s campaign was conducted as a referendum on his ten years in office. He said he provided free healthcare, free charity, free toilets in their homes, and free or inexpensive cooking gas cylinders for ladies.

However, following a low turnout in the first round of the election, he reversed course and started inciting Hindu nationalism by charging the Congress party with caving in to minority Muslims in order to get votes.

Approximately 14% of Muslims and 80% of Hindus make up India’s population of over 1.4 billion.

A voter from New Delhi named Manish Bhatia stated that choosing a candidate based just on their performance is important and that “politics on the basis of caste and religion is dangerous for the country.”

More than 10 percent of the world’s population, or almost 970 million people, had the opportunity to choose 543 members of the lower house of Parliament for a five-year term.

It has astonished some analysts that voters are so apathetic. The five polling rounds saw an average turnout of 65.9%, ranging from 62.2% to 69.16%. In contrast, 67.11% of voters cast ballots in India’s general election of 2019, the highest turnout ever. 2019 saw 303 seats gained by Modi’s BJP in the legislature.

The BJP was expecting a huge rise in support from the people due to Modi’s large-scale roadshows, public rallies, and the inauguration of a vast Hindu temple dedicated to the god Rama.

After India gained independence from British colonialists in 1947, the Congress party ruled the nation for over 55 years till the current prime minister took office in 2014.

The opposition INDIA coalition was seen fighting before the election, but it has since managed to stay together, especially when two chief ministers of states controlled by the opposition were imprisoned for corruption. They both refute the charges.

Since then, one of them—New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal—has been freed on bond and has resumed his campaign.

Gandhi started in the violent northeastern state of Manipur and walked 6,713 kilometers (4,171 miles) throughout the nation in March to educate people about issues of poverty, unemployment, and democracy.

The analyst Kidwai stated, “The walk helped Gandhi boost his image as a serious politician among the voters, and that is helping the opposition.”