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NEW DELHI. — Indian police tightened security amid restrictions on election celebrations yesterday as the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party geared up for victory ahead of the publication of results.Workers at the flower-festooned New Delhi headquarters of the BJP passed around traditional Indian sweets and chanted tributes to hardline leader Narendra Modi who, polls show, is likely to emerge as prime minister.
BJP workers said they brought in two car-loads of fireworks, while confectioner Hari Gyan Singh told AFP he had prepared around 2.5 tonnes of laddoos, a traditional ball-shaped sweet for the celebrations.
Vote counting will start at 08:00 am (0230 GMT) today at the climax of a marathon six-week parliamentary election that saw a record 551 million people file through polling booths.
“People have voted for development and progress. People are restless for change. They will feel liberated once results are announced,” BJP spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told reporters.
Election Commission officials have banned victory processions in India’s holiest Hindu city of Varanasi, where Modi is standing, and throughout the electorally critical northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
The state’s chief election official, Umesh Sinha, told AFP the decision was “ultimately aimed at maintaining law and order in the state”. — AFP.
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