NEW DELHI: Indians began voting Saturday in the last round of a six-week-long national election that is a referendum on Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade in power.

The election is considered one of the most consequential in India’s history. If Modi wins, he’ll be only the second Indian leader to retain power for a third term after Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister.
The seventh round of voting in 57 constituencies across seven states and one union territory will complete polling for all 543 seats in the powerful lower house of parliament. Nearly 970 million voters — more than 10 percent of the world’s population — were eligible to elect a new parliament for five years. More than 8,300 candidates ran for the office.
Most polls show Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party leading over the broad opposition alliance that’s challenging them, led by the Congress party. The votes will be counted Tuesday, with results expected by the end of the day.

Modi’s campaign, vying for a third-straight term, began on a platform of economic progress. He promised to uplift the poor and turn India into a developed nation by 2047. But it has turned increasingly shrill in recent weeks as he escalated polarizing rhetoric in back-to-back incendiary speeches that targeted the country’s Muslim minority, who make up 14 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people.
On Thursday, after finishing his election campaign, Modi went to meditate at a memorial site honoring a famous Hindu saint who is believed to have attained enlightenment there.
When the election kicked off in April, Modi and his BJP were widely expected to clinch another term.
Since first coming to power in 2014, Modi has enjoyed immense popularity. His supporters see him as a self-made, strong leader who has improved India’s standing in the world, and credit his pro-business policies with making the economy the world’s fifth-largest.
At the same time, his rule has seen brazen attacks and hate speech against minorities, particularly Muslims. India’s democracy, his critics say, is faltering and Modi has increasingly blurred the line between religion and state.
But as the campaign ground on, his party has faced stiff resistance from the opposition alliance and its main face, Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party. They have attacked Modi over his Hindu nationalist politics and are hoping to benefit from growing economic discontent.
Pre-poll surveys showed that voters were increasingly worried about unemployment, the rise in food prices and an overall sentiment that only a small portion of Indians have benefitted despite brisk economic growth under Modi, making the contest appear closer than initially anticipated.
In this election, Modi’s BJP — which controls much of India’s Hindi-speaking northern and central parts — sought to expand their influence by making inroads into the country’s eastern and southern states, where regional parties hold greater sway.
The BJP also banked on consolidating votes among the Hindu majority, who make up 80 percent of the population, after Modi opened a long-demanded Hindu temple on the site of a razed mosque in January. Many saw it as the unofficial start of his campaign, but analysts said the excitement over the temple may not be enough to yield votes.
Instead, Modi ramped up anti-Muslim rhetoric after voter turnout dipped slightly below 2019 figures in the first few rounds of the 2024 polls.
This was seen as a tactic to energize his core Hindu voter base. But analysts say it also reflected the lack of any big-ticket national issue to help Modi propel his BJP to electoral victory, as he has done previously.
In 2014, Modi’s status as a political outsider cracking down on deep-rooted corruption won over voters disillusioned with decades of dynastic politics. And in 2019, he swept the polls on a wave of nationalism after his government launched airstrikes into rival Pakistan in response to a suicide bombing in Kashmir that killed 40 Indian soldiers.
But things are different this time, analysts say, giving Modi’s political challengers a potential boost.
“The opposition somehow managed to derail his plan by setting the narrative to local issues, like unemployment and the economy. This election, people are voting keeping various issues in mind,” said Rasheed Kidwai, a political analyst.

WASHINGTON: Marian Robinson, mother of former US first lady Michelle Obama, who provided support and stability, especially during the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency, died on Friday, the Obama and Robinson families said. She was 86.
Fondly called the “first grandma,” Robinson played a pivotal role in helping care for her granddaughters, Malia and Sasha Obama, during their early years at the White House.
“With a healthy nudge, she agreed to move to the White House with Michelle and Barack. We needed her. The girls needed her. And she ended up being our rock through it all,” the family statement read, adding she died “peacefully” on Friday morning.
Born in 1937 on Chicago’s South Side, Robinson was one of seven children. Her parents separated during her teenage years and she witnessed the extreme highs and lows of race relations in the United States.
Her father was not allowed to join a union or work for larger construction firms due to the color of his skin and hence “grew mistrustful of a world that seemed to have little place for him,” the family said its statement. Yet, her daughter and son-in-law made it to the White House when Barack Obama became the first Black US president.
The glamor of the White House was never a great fit for Robinson, according to the family.
Rather than hobnobbing with Oscar winners or Nobel laureates, she preferred spending her time upstairs with a TV tray, in the room outside her bedroom with big windows that looked out at the Washington Monument, the family statement said. It added that she made great friends “with the ushers and butlers, the folks who make the White House a home.”
Robinson got married in 1960 and had two children, including the former first lady. She also worked as a teacher and a secretary, the family said.
During her eight years at the White House, the family said she would often sneak outside the gates to buy greeting cards at nearby stores and sometimes other customers would recognize her saying she resembled the first lady’s mother.
“Oh, I get that a lot,” she would smile and reply.