GUWAHATI: The process of counting of votes to determine the outcome for more than 8,000 candidates running for 542 Lok Sabha seats in the 2024 general elections started at 8 am.
According to the Election Commission of India, a record breaking 642 million voters, including 312 million women, took part in the Lok Sabha Elections.
The elections were supervised by 68,000 monitoring teams and 15 million polling security personnel, making it the world’s largest electoral exercise.
The 2024 general elections will determine whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will secure a third term, which would put him in the same league as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who also served three consecutive terms as PM.
Meanwhile, the Congress party is eager to make a comeback after losing in the last two general elections.
Initial trends suggest that the BJP os leading in the early stages of the Lok Sabha elections. Times Now reports that the NDA is ahead in 45 seats, which the INDIA bloc is leading in 15 seats, with Others leading in 5.
However, it’s important to note that these numbers are very preliminary, and the actual trends will only be clear once the counting of EVM votes begin.
The re-election of the Narendra Modi government is viewed as a positive sign for policy continuity by most brokerages. This sentiment was reflected in the stock markets, which reached new highs on Monday, the first day of trading after the Exit poll results indicated a favorable outcome for Modi’s BJP.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote a letter to the nation before the Lok Sabha election results on Tuesday. He shared that his three-day meditation in Kanyakumari was a humbling experience, and he feels a boundless flow of energy within him.
On the other hand, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi expressed hope that the election results would differ from the predictions of the exit polls. When asked about the exit poll projections, she told reporters that they would have to wait and see.
Rahul Gandhi had previously referred to the exit polls as “Modi Media Poll” and asserted that the INDIA alliance would secure 295 seats and form a government.
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