Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s landslide victory in the 2019 general election was covered extensively by foreign media.

Associated Press, under their story titled “India’s Modi paints image of Hindu ascetic called to power,” said: “The man in the saffron robe sat cross-legged with his eyes closed, back to the wall of a cave framed by the Himalayas. This was India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s latest production, traveling to a remote mountain temple with a preferred TV news crew to show the world India’s leader meditating days before the country’s marathon elections ended.” It concluded: “His recent visit to the cave temple signals that religion, and its defence, will remain a political priority.”

The Washington Post published a story under the headline “India’s Modi wins resounding election victory with potent appeal to nationalism.” It said: “The result represents a stunning vote of confidence in Modi, a charismatic and polarizing politician who is part of a crop of right-leaning populist leaders around the globe.”

BBC, in an opinion piece titled “How Narendra Modi has reinvented Indian politics,” wrote: “Many Indians seem to believe that Mr Modi is a kind of messiah who will solve all their problems.” It cited a study by a Delhi-based think tank called Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), which stated that a third of BJP voters had said they would have supported another party if Modi was not the prime ministerial candidate.

The piece also drew a parallel between PM Modi and Ronald Reagan. “In a sense, Mr Modi’s second successive landslide win echoes Ronald Reagan’s abiding popularity as US president in the 1980s, when he somehow escaped blame for his country’s economic woes. Reagan was called the Great Communicator and for being a ‘teflon’ president whose mistakes never stuck to him. Mr Modi enjoys a similar reputation.”

An editorial in The Guardian described Modi’s landslide victory as “bad for India’s soul”. It said that “Mr Modi has threatened independent India’s most precious facet: a functioning multi-party democracy”. The article describes  Modi as “divisive” and “undoubtedly a charismatic campaigner”, but also as someone who, instead of transcending “the fault lines of Indian society” such as religion, caste, region and language, throws them “into sharp relief”.

In the article titled “How Narendra Modi Seduced India With Envy and Hate” in The New York Times, Pankaj Mishra writes that voters had chosen overwhelmingly to “prolong this nightmare”. “The sources of Mr. Modi’s impregnable charisma seem more mysterious when you consider that he failed completely to realize his central promises of the 2014 election: jobs and national security,” Mishra said.

The article said: “Since 2014, Mr. Modi’s near-novelistic ability to create irresistible fictions has been steadily enhanced by India’s troll-dominated social media as well as cravenly sycophantic newspapers and television channels.” Mishra went on to say that Modi has exploited the “long dormant rage” against India’s “self-perpetuating post-colonial rulers” and how the governments prior to his had d left “no possibility of dialogue with a metropolitan ruling class of … Godlike aloofness, which had cruelly stranded us in history while itself moving serenely toward convergence with the prosperous West”.

Al Jazeera published a story titled “India votes Modi back with landmark mandate” describing the election win as: “The return of the right-wing party on Thursday … has caused concern among the country’s Muslim community, who suffered attacks by Hindu vigilante groups over the past five years.”

The Pakistani media covered the 2019 Lok Sabha election closely as well.

The Express Tribune had an agency copy titled “Modi stuns opposition with huge election win” which said that Modi’s “re-election reinforces a global trend of right-wing populists sweeping to victory, from the United States to Brazil and Italy, often after adopting harsh positions on protectionism, immigration and defence”. Geo TV wrote about how “Modi stuns Indian opposition with landslide election win”. The story primarily comprised of global leaders congratulating Modi on his sweeping victory. 

Dawn published a story titled “PM Imran congratulates Modi, ‘looks forward to working for peace’ in the region“. Two days earlier, the newspaper had published an opinion piece titled “If Modi returns” penned by Zahid Hussain. It said: “India is much more politically polarised with Modi trying to turn the country into a Hindu rashtriya.”