NEW DELHI (AP) — India began counting votes Tuesday from its distributed, six-week elections that was seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade in power and was expected to win him a third term.
Exit polls from major television networks indicate a comfortable victory for Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies over a broad period. opposition alliance led by the Congress Party and his main campaign manager, Rahul Gandhi.
Nearly 970 million people – more than 10% of the world’s population – were eligible to vote and turnout averaged 66%, according to official data. The counting at counting centers in 543 constituencies could last well into the evening before final results are announced, although substantial leads are likely to emerge sooner.
Currently:
— What you need to know as votes are counted
– The world’s largest electionin photos
— Voting ended Saturday in the election a referendum on Modi’s decade in power
– A A scorching heat wave killed fourteen people in India before the final voting phase
— Modi praises India’s booming economybut many feel abandoned.
Here’s the latest:
COUNTING STARTS WITH POSTAL VOTES AND THEN GOES TO ELECTRONIC VOTES
The counting of the approximately 642 million votes cast in India’s elections is done by government workers at various locations in the country. Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said they started with postal ballots and then moved to combining votes from India’s electronic voting machines.
The process is expected to be completed by the end of the day on Tuesday.
India has almost 970 million eligible voters, and staggered votes have been cast at more than a million polling stations over the past six weeks.
That brought the final stages of India’s hottest season, with temperatures exceeding 45 degrees Celsius in some parts of the country, and Kumar said election officials learned a valuable lesson.
“We should have completed the elections at least a month earlier,” he said before the start of the counting. “We shouldn’t have allowed it to continue in such heat.”
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