- Saturday, April 27, 2024
Official results from the three-day election held last week showed the veteran sweeping the poll with nearly 76 million votes.
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIAN prime minister Narendra Modi on Monday (18) congratulated Russian president Vladimir Putin on his re-election to the top office and said that he is looking forward to strengthening the “time-tested” ties between the two old allies.
In a post on X, the Indian leader said, “Warm congratulations to H.E. Mr. Vladimir Putin on his re-election as the President of the Russian Federation.
“Look forward to working together to further strengthen the time-tested Special & Privileged Strategic Partnership between India and Russia in the years to come.”
Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) declared earlier in the day that the 71-year-old Putin claimed a historic fifth term as the president of the country.
Read: Putin invites Modi to Russia, tells Jaishankar ‘will be glad to see our friend’
Warm congratulations to H.E. Mr. Vladimir Putin on his re-election as the President of the Russian Federation. Look forward to working together to further strengthen the time-tested Special & Privileged Strategic Partnership between India and Russia in the years to come.…
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 18, 2024
Official results from the three-day election held last week showed the veteran sweeping the poll with nearly 76 million votes.
“This is a record figure,” CEC chief Ella Pamfilova was quoted as saying by The Moscow Times after more than 99% of the ballots had been counted.
“The turnout is a record, an unprecedented 77.44 per cent. This has never happened in the history of the new Russia,” she said.
Read: Putin praises Modi, seeks to emulate India PM’s ‘Make in India’ initiative
“We proved to ourselves that we are an independent nation… and in the face of the West, we showed that we are united. We are proud of this,” Pamfilova added.
No real opposition was allowed to compete in the election. Alexei Navalny, one of Putin’s major opponents, died under mysterious conditions in a prison camp in the Arctic in February. While critics cried foul over the death of Navalny and the just concluded election, Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson of the Kremlin, told a media briefing in Moscow took a dig at them saying, “If we talk about the illegitimacy of elections in our country, then we should probably talk about the illegitimacy of those 87 per cent of the votes of the population…that were cast for president Putin. This is absurd.”
The Kremlin had projected the election as a moment for the people of Russia to throw their weight behind Russia’s military operations in Ukraine that completed two years last month.
(With PTI inputs)
