DECISIVE

Modi Set to Win Sweeping Re-Election Victory in India

There’s been no back-to-back majority for a single party since 1984, but the incumbent prime minister seems to have pulled it off.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks to have strolled to a massive re-election victory. The scale of the election was huge—900 million people were eligible to take part in seven rounds of voting, making it the biggest election the world had ever seen, and voters appear to have put their support firmly behind the prime minister. Votes are still being counted—understandably, it will take some time—but Modi’s Hindu-nationalist BJP party is ahead in 298 of the 542 seats available, up from the 282 it won in 2014. Just 272 seats are needed for a majority. If Modi does win, it would be the first back-to-back majority for a single party since 1984. Senior BJP figure Sushma Swaraj announced on Twitter that his party had won a “massive victory,” while Amarinder Singh, a leader in the main opposition Congress party, said they had “lost the battle” for power.