Narendra Modi scores a remarkable election victory

AFTER A HARD-FOUGHT re-election campaign, an American president might thwack some balls down a fairway, or go shoot turkey with the boys. Narendra Modi is different. As India’s gruelling election marathon reached its seventh and final round of voting, leaving a break before the final tally on May 23rd, its prime minister headed instead to a hermit’s cave at the foot of a Himalayan glacier. Or rather, Mr Modi led a posse of cameramen to the scenic Kedarnath Temple, where they dutifully snapped him in a range of poses, from deep meditation cloaked in a saffron shawl, to striding purposefully against a backdrop of snow-capped peaks, sporting a grey woollen cassock and felt cap, a silken tiger print cast over his shoulder.

The image, half Olympian god and half kung-fu wizard, suits a man who appears to have pulled off a miracle. For such, in the permanent subtropical storm of Indian politics, is the rarity of two consecutive full parliamentary majorities. As The Economist went to press, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) looked set to boost its share of votes from 31% in 2014 to 40%, and to increase its number of seats in the Lok Sabha, or lower house of parliament. With plenty of smaller regional parties as allies, Mr Modi will enjoy another walloping majority.