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Hindu holy city votes as India's six-week election ends
Narendra Modi has already led the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to two landslide victories in 2014 and 2019.
Representative Image. / iStock photo
India's six-week election reached its final day of voting on June.1, including in the holy city of Varanasi from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is contesting.
Modi is widely expected to win a third term in office when results are announced on June.4, in large part due to his cultivated image as an aggressive champion of India's majority faith.
The 73-year-old's constituency of Varanasi is the spiritual capital of Hinduism, where devotees from around India come to cremate deceased loved ones by the Ganges river.
It is one of the final cities to vote in India's grueling election and where public support for Modi's ever-closer alignment of religion and politics burns brightest.
"Modi is obviously winning," Vijayendra Kumar Singh, who works in one of the popular pilgrimage destination's many hotels, told AFP.
"There's a sense of pride with everything he does, and that's why people vote for him."
Modi has already led the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to two landslide victories in 2014 and 2019, forged in large part by his appeal to the Hindu faithful.
This year, he presided over the inauguration of a grand temple to the deity Ram. Construction of the temple fulfilled a longstanding demand of Hindu activists and was widely celebrated across the country with back-to-back television coverage and street parties.
Analysts have long expected Modi to triumph against the opposition alliance, which at no point has named an agreed candidate for prime minister.
His prospects have been further bolstered by several criminal probes into his opponents and a tax investigation this year that froze the bank accounts of Congress, India's largest opposition party.
Modi's image at home has been bolstered by India's rising diplomatic and economic clout - the country overtook Britain as the world's fifth-biggest economy in 2022.
"As an Indian, I feel that he has ensured a lot of respect and prestige for India during his term," Shikha Aggarwal, 40, told AFP outside a polling station on June.1.
"People now look at India and Indians with a lot more respect, something not accorded earlier."
Fifty-seven seats across seven states - 13 in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, nine in Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha, four in Himachal Pradesh, and three in Jharkhand, as well as Chandigarh - will complete a mammoth exercise that began 55 days ago - on Apr.19.
Heat factor
India has voted in seven phases over six weeks to ease the immense logistical burden of staging an election in the world's most populous country.
Both counting and results are expected on June.4 but exit polls published after polls close on June.1 are expected to give some indication of the winner.
Turnout is down several percentage points from the last national election in 2019, with analysts blaming widespread expectations of a Modi victory as well as successive heatwaves scorching India's northern states.
Extensive scientific research shows climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense, with Asia warming faster than the global average.
Temperatures in Varanasi were forecast to peak at 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit) during June.1 voting.
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