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Modi or Gandhi?

Indian mystics split over general election outcome

AFP, Mumbai
Transgender mystic Zoya Lobo turns over three oracle cards, studies them for a minute and looks up. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will definitely win India's general election this summer, she proclaims.
Clairvoyant Larra Shah also predicts a victory for Modi owing to his "extremely powerfill aura", but astrologer Raj Kumar Sharma thinks opposition leader Rahul Gandhi will win because his party's moon sign is Virgo.
Vedic astrology is big business in Hindu-majority India and stargazers are making a host of predictions for the world's biggest elections starting next month - their many followers hangi ng on every utterance.
Some 900 million voters are registered to cast ballots in the vote in April and May which will see Gandhi's Congress party seek to dislodge Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from power.
Shah, 49, a celebrity holistic healer who practises tarot reading, says most of them will plump for Modi, himself a devout Hindu.
"When it comes to tarot cards Modi is like the emperor or the magician where the power of self-knowledge, of spiritual balance, of karma, is in perfection, * she explains to AFP.
"Rahul Gandhi is more like the devil because he's always confused. There is a conflict there because he is a Gemini so has a dual personality," Shah adds.
Modi, 68, and the right-wing Hindu nationalist BJP swept to power five years ago by winning 282 out of543 seats, forming the country's first majority government in almost three decades.
Shah expects Modi to be returned, but with a vastly reduced majority. Pre-election polling suggests an even
closer contest, with many forecasting that neither party will win the 272 seats needed for a majority.
Lobo also has a prediction that hits closer to home for her - a 35 percent chance that Modi will do something to help India's two-million-strong transgender community.
PLANETS ALIGNED
Indians consult soothsayers for advice on a raft of subjects from whom to marry to whether to buy a house or strike a business deal.
Many businessmen, Bollywood actors and politicians have personal astrologers scrutinise their stars closely to determine auspicious days to hold functions, release a movie or make political announcements.
For the election, Sharma says the planets are aligning in favour of Congress - based on the birth dates of the parties and their leaders - and that it will be able to persuade smaller, regional parties to join them in a coalition.