Huge expectations weigh on Modi, says Canadian media

The paper lays emphasis, as others have equally done, on Modi's "most decisive electoral victory for the country has seen in three decades" and this kind of majority will allow Modi "to rejuvenate India's sputtering".

Toronto Star columnist Haroon Siddiqui, an Indian-Canadian hailing from Hyderabad, wrote: "Never in history has there been an election as mammoth and awe-inspiring as this -- an electorate of 815 million exercising its franchise over five peaceful weeks at 930,000 polling stations, supervised by 8 million officials... On Friday, 1.8 million counting machines got the job done in a few hours -- no hanging chads, no arguments."

"The Modi campaign was flush with money, of a magnitude never seen before -- an estimated $5 billion, second only to Barack Obama's $7 billion binge in 2012," the article stated.

"The BJP was not the only party offering cash for votes, and freebies -- toasters, cellphone, TVs - in every riding," Siddiqui asserts.

"The Modi campaign copied Obama in making full use of social media. It dominated Twitter, with 11.1 million tweets out of 56 million between Jan 1 and May 12, the last day of voting."