Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party claimed it had won re-election with a commanding lead in vote count Thursday, May 23, 2019. This was India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s latest production, traveling to a remote mountain temple with a preferred TV news crew to show the world India’s leader meditating days before the end of the country’s marathon general elections. The party has become synonymous with Modi, whose near-ubiquitous bearded and bespectacled visage appears on BJP billboards blanketing India’s vast territory. “Every vote for the lotus” — the BJP’s ballot symbol — “will go into Modi’s kitty,” Modi said recently. When Modi took the stage in his characteristic white kurta and flag-of-India sash, he started by mentioning that he’d met several people on Delhi’s Metro.

Source: Washington Post May 23, 2019 10:30 UTC