POLITICAL pundits have spent much of the past week debating exit polls, released just after the final day of voting on May 12th. The polls pointed, more or less, to a single outcome: the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will wallop the incumbent party, Congress, and, led by Narendra Modi, will form the next government. Investors pushed the stockmarket to a record high. But details matter, such as whether Mr Modi can rely on a narrow coalition or will need a broad one. Here, the pollsters cannot be relied upon. The official results are due on May 16th, after The Economist goes to press.
A second debate concerned the clout of the Hindu right. Since he was a boy, Mr Modi has been an activist member in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), formed in 1925 as a pro-Hindu social movement. It began with charitable aims but always carried quasi-military overtones as men in brown shorts performed dawn callisthenics. These days the RSS is rebranding itself as a more youthful, right-leaning, nationalist organisation, with rugby and volleyball on offer as alternatives to physical jerks.
Yet Mr Modi’s rise brings questions about the role of the RSS and the wider Sangh Parivar, or family of Hindu nationalist outfits. Some have high expectations. About 2,000 volunteers turned out to help Mr Modi in Varanasi alone. On May 12th members of the RSS’s student wing cheered Mr Modi as “one of us ”, claiming he would bring relief on issues dear to them (and worrying to Muslims and secular types).
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