India ruling party leading in biggest state election as counting begins

PanARMENIAN.Net - Early counting on Saturday, March 11 in India's most populous state showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party leading in the country's most important electoral test since the 2014 general election, Reuters reports.

If the Bharatiya Janata Party does wrest control of Uttar Pradesh it would be an endorsement of Modi's stewardship of Asia's third-largest economy after his high-risk decision last November to scrap high-value banknotes worth 86 percent of the cash in circulation.

Though it was premature to call the outcome, the election commission put the BJP leading in 262 of the 403 seats in the state, putting it on course for a large majority.

The BJP's vote share based on early counting is more than 40 percent, the election commission said.

"This will be a phenomenal endorsement for Narendra Modi and will put him on track for winning the 2019 election," Prannoy Roy, editor of TV channel NDTV said.

Having campaigned in the state for two months, Modi, and his election strategist Amit Shah, can take credit if the BJP wins - but may face a backlash from sidelined party elders if they come up short.

"The results will redefine the prime minister's political destiny and his future course of action," an aide to Modi in the capital, New Delhi, told Reuters.

Post-election surveys had suggested Modi's BJP had done enough to come first in Uttar Pradesh, home to one in six Indians, but that it might fall short of an outright majority.

The exit polls, which are often wrong in India, also put the BJP ahead in three of four other states that will declare election outcomes on Saturday.

According to early voting trends, opposition Congress party was leading in the state of Punjab, while the BJP was ahead in the northern state of Uttarakhand and in the coastal state of Goa. Results of a ballot in a fifth state, Manipur, were also due on Saturday.