Narendra Modi, leader of the triumphant conservative Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was proclaimed the winner of India’s 2014 massive election, winning for his party an outright majority of at least 280 seats in India’s next parliament.
With more than 550 million votes cast in India’s five-week, nine-phase election, Narendra Modi, a man most Americans have never heard of from a country most could not find a map, becomes the single greatest vote-getter of all time.
Official results from mankind’s largest election ever held show that Modi’s BJP is leading in at least 280 of India’s 543 constituencies. Not only did India’s ruling Congress Party suffer what appears to be its worst loss in Indian history, its leader Rahul Gandhi is trailing in his own constituency and could lose his seat in parliament.
Modi’s wider National Democratic Alliance, combining India’s conservative parties together with the BJP, has according to official results won at least 340 seats. With a solid majority of its own, the BJP would not technically even need coalition partners to form a government, but it is expected to do so in order to strengthen its national writ.
Shortly after the results were announced, Modi took to Twitter to declare:
…before heading back to his mother’s home in Gujarat state to seek her blessing.