India ends the world's largest general election after more than six weeks world

India's general elections 2024 – Image: Nearly 970 million voters, more than 10% of the world's population, were eligible to elect a new parliament in India for five years until Saturday, June 1, 2024 – AP Photo / Ashwini Bhatia

India's general elections ended on Saturday (first) after the final phase of voting that lasted more than six weeks. The dispute was characterized by the great favoritism of the Prime Minister, Narendra ModiA representative of Hindu nationalism, and a strong heat wave.

Voting centers closed at 10 a.m. Brasilia time. The counting of votes will end on Tuesday (4) and the results are scheduled to be announced by Thursday (5).

There is no doubt that Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party will win, ensuring the prime minister a third term.

The Prime Minister's nationalist policies, which are increasingly mixed with religion, are very popular in Varanasi, which is flooded by the Ganges River, where Hindu believers cremate the bodies of their loved ones.

“It is clear that Modi will win,” Vijayendra Kumar Singh, who works in one of the many hotels in this holy city, told Agence France-Presse. He added: “There is a sense of pride in everything he does and that is why people voted for him.”

Modi has already led his party to two major victories in the 2014 and 2019 elections, thanks in part to his popularity among Hindus.

According to analysts, the Prime Minister, who enjoys great popularity, worked to encourage polarization so that Hindus, the religion practiced by about 85% of the population and the basis of his party, would appear in the polls.

It is a strategy that may have been hastily redesigned because of another factor that characterized the first of the seven phases of the elections: low voter turnout, especially among the Hindu population.

Modi has more layers to the religious issue, but religion is the major mobilizing point [de sua campanha]. He already realizes that Muslims do not care about his re-election.

— Tanguy Baghdadi, professor of international politics, in an interview with g1

Muslims pray in front of a mosque in New Delhi, India, on April 11, 2024. – Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP

Voting took place over nearly seven weeks, with each region voting on different dates to include the group 970 million voters were called to vote in the country's electionsWhich constitutes more than 10% of the world's population.

However, population participation has so far declined several points compared to the last national elections in 2019. Analysts attribute this decline to Modi's expected victory and successive heat waves in the north of the country, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius.

Western powers have largely turned a blind eye to reports of rights and freedom violations in India in order to attract an important ally in the face of growing Chinese influence.

Elections in India — Photo: Arte/g1

* With international agencies