As India's general election has kicked off, is there no suspense about the next prime minister? At the critical moment, the 73-year-old Modi's attitude toward China has changed, and the signal has attracted people's attention. Why is there no suspense about the outcome of India's general election, and how has Modi's attitude towards China changed?
On April 19, the world's largest and most complex election, the Indian general election, officially began. According to the news, in the next 40 days, nearly 1 billion registered voters in India and more than 2,400 political parties will participate in this trillion-rupee political campaign, and the final result will be reached after seven rather tedious stages.
Although this year's Indian general election has just begun, the outside world generally believes that the "National League for Democracy" led by Modi has "won the battle", and there is no suspense about the choice of the next prime minister. Some industry experts pointed out that Modi, who has a poll support rate of more than 70%, still has a high political reputation in India, and the opposition party does not have a rival existence.
Coupled with the fact that the ruling party holds 12 seats in India's 28 states and has a much larger sphere of influence than the opposition parties, Modi, 73, has become a lot easier. Judging from the current situation, the Modi government may not be more concerned about whether it can win this year's general election, but whether his Bharatiya Janata Party (i.e., the "Bharatiya Janata Party") can independently win 370 seats and occupy an absolute majority in parliament, because this will determine whether Modi can get rid of the "containment" of multi-party democracy on India's rise by amending the constitution.
Of course, the unrivalled popularity does not mean that the Modi government's path to re-election will be smooth sailing. Although the Modi government's "Make in India" strategy has created a lot of wealth and significantly increased the country's overall strength and international influence, the widening class gap and uneven development have caused discontent among some people. According to Reuters and other media reports, in some areas of India where ethnic conflicts are frequent, many people have expressed "disappointment" with the Modi government.
Judging from the current situation, these "disappointed" voices may determine whether this year's Indian general election will be the last "general election". Many industry scholars believe that if Modi's BJP gains an absolute advantage of more than 370 seats and then consolidates its leading position at the institutional level, it will be quite difficult for the opposition parties to "turn around" in the future. After that, the "one big family" BJP may lead India to embark on a completely different diplomatic path, and even abandon the traditional foreign policy of "non-alignment" and embark on a different "great power path" under the "Indo-Pacific strategy" of the United States.
It is worth mentioning that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who should have been busy with the general election, once again talked about the issue of Sino-Indian relations a few days ago, and his attitude towards China has also undergone some subtle changes. According to foreign media sources, Modi affirmed the great significance of Sino-Indian relations in the interview, saying that the two countries should hurry up to resolve the protracted border issue in order to eliminate anomalies in bilateral interactions.
For the Indian government, which has been aggressive on the border issue, Modi's remarks undoubtedly meant to ease bilateral relations. Some analysts believe that the reason why the Indian side openly affirms the importance of peace and stability between China and India to the entire region and the world, and calls on China to resolve the issue through bilateral contacts at the diplomatic and military levels, is probably to avoid further escalation of the situation in southern Tibet and to prevent the border situation from having an impact on the election results.
Some analysts pointed out that Modi's positive signal on China-India relations is a timely correction of India's recent trend of warming up on the border issue, which is also what China hopes to see. After all, the border issue is not the whole story of China-India relations, and negotiation and communication are the better solution than military pressure or military confrontation. If the Modi government can implement the above statement and work with China in the same direction, I believe that China-India relations will develop in a positive direction.