NEW DELHI: Writing on the wall appeared clear on Thursday, much early ahead completion of the counting of votes in the Lok Sabha elections, that a Tsunami wave of Prime Minister Modi has swept the nation.
The ruling Bhartiya Janata Party credited a near repeat of the 2014 mandate won by its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to the “Modi magic,” the Congress called it an “EVM magic,” directly accusing the Election Commission for deplying “Electronic Victory Machines” for BJP.
The EVM counting of votes gave so large margins to the BJP candidates in most constituencies that it became meaningless to wait for the counting of the VVPAT paper slips only after all EVM votes are counted.
Only 5% VVPATs are to be counted and that can not make any material difference in the votes polled by the EVMs in 95% booths even if the VVPAT votes are taken into account in case of discrepancy with the EVM votes.
The official declaration of results may be delayed, but the picture will be already clear as soon as the EVM counting is over.
The BJP workers crowding at the party’s decorated headquarters started bursting crackers even before noon, but leaders stopped them to wait for the grand celebrations to start only at 5 PM when PM Modi will join them.
The Congress and other opposition parties, who were planning until Wednesday night to rush to the President of India with expectation of a hung Parliament, were stunned by the unexpected results.
Their twitter handles went silent, be it Rahul Gandhi, Ahmed Patel and P Chidambaram of Congress, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar or Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu.
The lone voice early in the afternoon came from senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, a senior advocate who continuously trashed the Election Commission for doing all to help PM Modi and his BJP win the elections.
In a tweet, out out at 2 pm, Singhvi said: “Irrespective of reasons, #modi #shah & #bjp deserve huge compliments 4such a victory margin and bucking anti incumbency. But they shd be prepared for a vocal vigorous and responsible #opposition.”
In another tweet, he said: “Magnanimity in victory, honour in defeat. not the time 4recrimination. Heartiest congrats due to #modi #amit #shah #bjp. their brand of #nationalism ( fake as per us)worked as did #polarisation & #divisiveness. Somewhere, our real ground agenda of #jobs; #agri; eco #rafale failed.”
Singhvi also told the TV channels that “He (PM Modi) has worked on polarisation, divisiveness and it has worked. He has successfully harnessed our armed forces into political campaign.”
A Congress veteran said the opposition parties are to be blamed for giving so much publicity to Modi by making this election Modi centric but failing to unite to give one-to-one fight to the BJP. This dejected the voters, besides splitting the Opposition votes to give advantage to the BJP, he said.
