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New Delhi/METRO n Vol. XCV No. 123 n Price ₹5.00/with Hindustan ₹ 9.00 (₹ 7.50 in Faridabad)/with Mint ₹ 9.50 n 32 Pages + 16 pages of HT City. Area specific pages extra. FRIDAY, MAY 24, 2019

INDIAKEEPSFAITHINMODI
HISTORIC MANDATE BJP wins majority PM TRUMPS EVERYTHING Modi wave RIVALS DECIMATED Cong distant second Rahul loses Amethi
on its own for second consecutive time, sweeps country as voters see election as a with 52 seats; SP-BSP alliance sees limited
significantly improves its tally from 2014 referendum on five years of his leadership traction on ground; BJP storms TMC bastion contest to Smriti,
Prashant Jha
congratulates her
n prashant.jha1@hindustantimes.com

NEWDELHI: In the intense, long-drawn out, and often

and Team Modi
confrontational campaign ahead of the Lok Sabha Anisha Dutta
elections, the most optimistic Bharatiya Janata n letters@hindustantimes.com
Party (BJP) supporters borrowed a slogan first used
ahead of the 2017 state elections in Uttar Pradesh: NEW DELHI: Congress president
Ab ki baar; teen sau paar (This time, over 300). Rahul Gandhi on Thursday lost
On Thursday, the party did just that. It had won Amethi – a seat that he had won
or was leading in 303 seats (of a total of 542 polled) at forthreeconsecutivetermssince
midnight. 2004 – to BJP’s Smriti Irani by at
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had returned to least 60,000 votes.
power for second term, and how. Conceding defeat at a press
Modi led his party to a higher vote share (37%) as conference in the Capital, Rahul
compared to 2014 as well, achieving outright politi- Gandhi said he accepted the peo-
cal dominance in large parts of north, central, west, ple’smandateandcongratulated
and east India. PMNarendraModiandtheNDA.
The electorate has decisively rejected the Opposi- “I heartily thank the workers
tion, reducing the Congress to a mere 52 seats (won and candidates of our Congress
or leading at midnight), just eight more than what party who fought with all their
it won in 2014. Party president Rahul Gandhi him- heart,” he said at the press brief-
self lost from the family pocket borough Amethi to ing where he was accompanied
the BJP’s Smriti Irani, though he by his sister and party general
won from Wayanad. The 2019 secretary Priyanka Gandhi.
mandate has also come as a huge Rahul Gandhi said the Lok
election setback for several regional play- Sabha campaign was a battle of
2019 ers, from Mayawati and Akhilesh ideologies between the two par-
Yadav in Uttar Pradesh to ties. On whether he would step
Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal downfromthepostofpartypresi-
to Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra. dent, Rahul Gandhi said, “The
It is only in south India — where barring Karnataka decision will be between me and
and to some extent Telangana — that the BJP faced theworkingcommittee,”adding,
a strong opposition. hetakes“100%responsibility”of
This is the first time since 1971 that a Prime Min- the defeat.
ister has been re-elected to office with an outright Rahul Gandhi also congratu-
majority. latedIraniandsaid,“Iwouldlike
that Smriti Irani Ji take care of
THE MODI HAWA Amethi with love.”
This is also the first time in decades that an election Rahul Gandhi,
turned truly presidential. though, won
This was the most important strand of the politi- from Kerala’s
cal message of the BJP, with Modi reiterating that Wayanad con-
a vote on Kamal (the party’s lotus symbol) would stituency by
directly be a vote for him. The decision to turn the 4,30,000 votes,
poll into a referendum on himself completely over- defeating
whelmed local anti-incumbency against BJP candi- CPI’s PP
dates, adverse social equations in seats, larger eco- Suneer.
nomic issues, and helped the party penetrate areas ››P4
where it had been traditionally vulnerable.
From March 28, starting from a rally in Meerut in n Rahul Gandhi addresses the
west Uttar Pradesh, Modi addressed 142 rallies. His n PM Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah gesture at party workers and supporters as they arrive at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Thursday. PTI media on Thursday. BLOOMBERG
speeches combined a focus on his government’s
delivery of rural assets in villages ; national secu-
rity ; honest administration; and most importantly,
strong leadership and a cohesive government .
The BJP, acutely conscious of the 2004 verdict, BJP makes clean
when Atal Bihari Vajpayee lost despite being the
favourite, was careful to avoid the same mistakes.
By playing up its pro-poor welfare agenda, it sought
sweep in Capital A limited
to avoid the trap of being seen as elitist. The party
also coordinated closely with its ideological co-trav-
ellers in the Sangh Parivar, which many believed HT Correspondents In contrast, the vote share of
opportunity for Luxury Residences

had turned somewhat inert back in 2004. Thecoordi-

nation also involved an explicit Hindutva tilt in the
campaign -- this was most visible in its decision to
n letters@hindustantimes.com

NEW DELHI: Delhi’s voters have

the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam
Aadmi Party (AAP), which had
won 67 out of the 70 Delhi assem-
an endless holiday.
award a ticket to terror accused Pragya Singh Tha-
kur in Bhopal, its firm defenceof the National Regis-
often led the way in determining
the outcome of the national elec-
bly seats in 2015, fell from 33% in
2014 to 18.12% in these elections.
The last few waterfront
ter of Citizens and the Citizenship Amendment Bill, tions,andthistimetoo,theygotit Delhi’s ruling party finished apartments remaining.
and a commitment to remove the special provisions right. The national capital third on five out of seven seats.
with regard to Jammu and Kashmir in the Constitu- re-elected Bharatiya Janata While congratulating Prime
tion. Compared to 2004, the BJP has also expanded Party (BJP) candidates to all MinisterNarendraModiforwin- Boo
ok now.
its social base, winning over the support of a large sevenLokSabhaseats,mirroring ningasecondterm,Kejriwalalso
segment of both backward and Dalit communities, the landslide national victory of said he is looking forward to
while it succeeded in retaining its old traditional the saffron party on Thursday. workingtogetherinDelhi.“Icon-
vote of the middle-class, and upper castes. All of The BJP received 56.5% of the gratulateNarendraModiforthis
this, aided by a strong organisation shepherded by totalvotespolled in Delhi, which historic win and look forward to
Amit Shah, made 2019 different. wassignificantlyupfromthe46% working together for the better-
But it was, at the core, Modi’s appeal and the faith vote share it got in the 2014 gen- ment of the people of Delhi,” he
he evoked among voters that best explains the ver- eral elections. said in a tweet.
dict. The BJP achieved what was considered almost The Congress, which had a “Wehadfieldedverygoodcan-
impossible in political circles. The NDA replicated vote share of 15% in the last par- didates in Delhi and had done a
its 2014 performance of winning all 26 seats in Guj- liamentary election, recouped good campaign. All party work-
arat, 25 in Rajasthan, seven in Delhi, and five each somesupport,finishingsecondin ersalsohadputalotofhardwork.
in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand yet again. five constituencies and polling We accept people’s mandate. We
CONTINUED ON P 6 22.5% votes across the city. CONTINUED ON P 22

Jagan, Stalin, Naveen other big winners

n YSR Congress Party’s
Jaganmohan Reddy
Sunetra Choudhury
n letters@hindustantimes.com
NEWDELHI: The giant laddoo cake
that had been ordered by the
Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Jan-
ata Party (BJP) hadn’t even
arrived yet from Bengali Sweets
on Thursday when the party
accomplished a majority on its
own in the Lok Sabha.
Although all its allies hadn’t
done as well, the BJP, on the
strength ofitsown performance,
had taken the ruling National
DemocraticAlliance(NDA)to346
seats, a gain of 10 seats.
Whatitmeantwasthatthebig-
gest winner of the 17th general
electionwasPrimeMinisterNar-
endra Modi, who campaigned
indefatigablyfortheBJPandthe
ANI NDA,addressing142electionral-
IN ODISHA, NAVEEN
PATNAIK PROVED HE
CAN’T BE WRITTEN OFF,
SECURING A FIFTH TERM
AS CM APART FROM A
CREDITABLE LS SHOW
lies crisscrossing the nation, to
make sure that the party and the
alliance returned to power once
again.
However, amidst the fanfare
andeuphoriasurroundingBJP’s
win,therewereotherwinnerstoo
who held their own, such as YSR
Congress Party’s Jaganmohan
Reddy, whose party won all 25
Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pra-
desh and 141 of the 175 assembly
seats in simultaneous elections,
and Biju Janata Dal’s (BJD)
Naveen Patnaik, who is all set to
helm Odisha for the fifth time.
Modi wrote in a message to
Jagan Reddy, the man set to be
thenewchiefministerofAndhra
Set on the banks of the Chilavannoor river, DLF Riverside feels
Pradesh:“Congratulationsonthe
like a lifelong holiday with a plethora of leisure options including a
remarkable win in Andhra Pra-
desh.Bestwishestoyouforasuc- 2300 sq. m. Clubhouse, indoor sports venues, a swimming pool, a
cessful tenure.’’ yoga deck and more. A one of its kind community in the heart of
JaganReddyfoundedhisparty Kochi, DLF Riverside is only for a chosen few, and now is the time
afterleavingtheCongressfollow- to be a part of it.
ing his father and former chief Actual images
ministerYSRajasekharaReddy’s
death in a September 2009 heli-
copter crash.
The Congress was left non-ex-
istent in Andhra Pradesh and
outgoing chief minister N Chan- Sprawling 2.07 hectares
drababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam
Party (TDP) was reduced to a
for more space per resident.
mere 29 seats in the assembly. 2, 3, 4 bedroom luxury residences and duplexes.
CONTINUED ON P 6 Starting from 2.07 Cr.

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Trump, Imran, Netanyahu,
Putin, Xi congratulate Modi
World leaders including US Presi-
dent Donald Trump, Pakistan PM
Imran Khan, Russia’s Vladimir Putin
and China’s Xi Jinping congratu-
lated PM Modi. Khan said he
looked forward to working with
Modi for peace in South Asia. Modi
responded to Khan’s message and
expressed his desire to work for
stability in the region. ››P27
Markets reverse gains after
Sensex touches record high
Stock markets rose to records in
morning trade on Thursday, with
the Sensex soaring past the
40,000-point level for the first
time, as vote counts showed the
NDA headed towards a second
term. Profit-taking by investors
eroded all the gains and the Sensex
closed down at 38,811.39 after
reaching 40,125. ››P27
Election 2019 shows that
2014 was not an outlier
The BJP’s return to power shows
2014 wasn’t the outlier everyone
considered it to be. The biggest
factor behind the win was PM
Modi; nothing else can explain
why, across states, stalwarts from
the Opposition bit the dust, and
why the BJP swept states where
the Congress won assembly polls
as recently as December. ››P12
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SP-BSP alliance fails to stop www.riversideproject.dlf.in Vyttila, Kochi - 682 019
NDA march in Uttar Pradesh
The SP-BSP grand alliance failed to
stop the BJP from marching
towards electoral success in Uttar
Loan facility available
Pradesh. The BJP was leading in 59
of the state’s 80 seats till the time from leading banks
of going to press. The alliance was
ahead on 20 seats and the Con-
gress on one — Sonia Gandhi’s Rae Building Permit no. KRPI/318/07 dated 22/10/07 issued to M/s Adelie Builders and Developers (P) Ltd. granted Occupation Certificate
Bareli. PM Modi led by a comforta- dated 03/05/18 by Kochi Municipal Corporation.
ble margin in Varanasi. ››P10
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