Vote count under way in five India states including Uttar Pradesh | Elections News
The state polls are a crucial test for PM Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party before national elections in 2024.
Indian officials have begun the count in five state assembly votes – a crucial test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before the national elections in 2024.
Exit polls say the BJP is set to keep control of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state with over 220 million people, despite the government’s much-criticised handling of COVID-19, high unemployment, and anger over farm reforms that Modi cancelled last year after protests.
The key northern state is governed by Yogi Adityanath, a highly divisive Hindu monk-turned-politician whose rise has been marked by anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence.
The BJP has long predicted it would retain Uttar Pradesh because of policies such as free staples for the poor during the pandemic, a crackdown on crime, and its popularity among the Hindu majority reinforced by the construction of a temple on the site of a razed mosque.
In elections in four smaller states over the past month, the Aam Aadmi Party that governs the national capital territory of Delhi is projected to win in Punjab, while the races are tight in BJP-ruled Manipur, Goa, and Uttarakhand.
Poll of Exit Polls
BJP in Uttar Pradesh & AAP in Punjab
Source: NDTV pic.twitter.com/YIHUREh2om
— Soumyajit Pattnaik (@soumyajitt) March 7, 2022
Uttar Pradesh is home to about a fifth of India’s 1.35 billion people and sends the most legislators to Parliament of any state.
It has long been said that without winning Uttar Pradesh and the neighbouring state of Bihar, no party or coalition has much hope of securing a majority in Parliament. The BJP has been in power in both.
For decades, Uttar Pradesh was a stronghold of the main opposition Congress party, but it has been unable to stem a slide in its popularity over recent years.
If Modi’s party holds Uttar Pradesh as expected, opposition hopes of a united front to challenge him in the next general election will be dented.
