India’s Historic General Elections: Choosing Modi’s Third Term

In a six-week election that begins on Friday, almost a billion people will choose whether to elect Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a third term.

TFD – Delve into the monumental Indian general elections as nearly a billion voters decide the fate of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s potential third term. Explore the significance of this democratic event and its impact on India’s political landscape.

Nearly a billion Indians will cast ballots on Friday in what is expected to be the largest democratic election in history, choosing their next government and whether to give Prime Minister Narendra Modi a third term in power.

Beginning on April 19 and lasting for the next six weeks, there will be seven stages to the general elections of 2024.

The Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian parliament, will have its seats filled by voters for the ensuing five years. The stronger of the two houses of Parliament is the Lok Sabha.

The majority-winning party or coalition will form the government and select the next prime minister. Most analysts predict that in the next elections, Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party would win with overwhelming margins once again.

Here’s why the elections in India are important.

India’s quick ascent

India’s economy has reached unprecedented heights under Modi’s leadership. With a GDP of $3.7 trillion, it is currently the fifth largest economy in the world. By 2027, it hopes to overtake the United States as the third largest economy.

The most populous nation in the world, with 1.4 billion people, also has the fastest-growing economy. In fiscal 2022–2023, its GDP rose by 7.2%, which was the second-highest growth rate among G20 nations.

India’s GDP is expected to increase 6.8% in 2024 and 6.5% in 2025, according to IMF projections, whereas China’s economy is expected to grow 4.6% in 2024 and 4.1% in 2025.

But that’s not all.

India’s stock market, which is currently valued at more than $4 trillion, surpassed Hong Kong’s in December to take the fourth position as the largest in the world.

Analysts predict that Modi will be elected to a third consecutive five-year term, which will accelerate India’s economic growth.

“The story of growth is not over. However, exports have decreased and private and international investments have been fairly muted, according to Suyash Rai, deputy director and fellow at Carnegie India, who spoke with CNBC. Thus, I sense that a vulnerability is developing.

In the last year, India has developed closer relationships with the West, and Chietigj Bajpaee, senior research fellow for South Asia at Chatham House, believes that Modi’s reelection might improve ties between the United States and India even more.

As the Biden administration continues to push American businesses to relocate their electronics and technology manufacturing activities from China to friendlier nations like India, he stated that India is seen as a “bulwark against China.

“China as a long-term strategic opponent and India as a long-term strategic partner are the two nations where there is the greatest level of agreement. That won’t alter, according to Bajpaee.

Important competitors

The party or coalition that receives at least 272 votes will form the government out of the 543 contested seats in the lower house.

The opposition group known as the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) and the BJP-led coalition known as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) are the two primary candidates.

More than forty opposition parties came together to create the opposition coalition last year. Rahul Gandhi, the son of Rajiv Gandhi, the grandson of Indira Gandhi, and the great-grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, all of whom held the position of prime minister of India, is the party’s leader.

In the elections of 2014 and 2019, the Congress party, which had governed the nation for the majority of the post-Independence era, suffered painful losses.

The BJP won 303 seats in total in 2019. 352 seats were secured along with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. In that year, the opposition Indian National Congress secured 52 seats.

Thanks to the political stability of the past ten years, analysts predict that the BJP’s coalition alliance will defeat the opposition parties once more and win a historic third term.

Political stability and policy coherence are closely related to one another. Thus, it is anticipated that the incoming government will be able to uphold that, according to Amitendu Palit, senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies.

This year will be crucial for India, and I feel that the direction of the country’s foreign and economic policies will largely not change, regardless of the government in power,” he said to CNBC.

According to reports, Modi expressed confidence in the BJP and NDA’s ability to win 400 seats together in March.

Although it is “a foregone conclusion” that Modi’s BJP will win again this year, Chatham’s Bajpaee stated that “what’s unclear is the scale of the victory.”

For the opposition to prevail, the BJP does not have to lose. If they don’t perform as well as they did the last time, all they have to do is demonstrate that the Modi brand has lost strength,” he said.

Voters’ worries

In a survey of 10,000 people, 27% said that their main concern was unemployment, according to the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

In addition, over half of those polled (62%) claimed that finding work has grown harder over the previous five years, particularly during Modi’s second term.

“There are significant disparities across the nation because a sizable portion of the population remains impoverished,” Bajpaee stated.

With 23% of voters indicating that it is their top issue, rising expenses rank as the second most significant worry. In the last five years, about 35% of respondents claimed that their quality of life had decreased.

The progress of the nation was cited as the primary concern by almost 13% of respondents, while corruption was cited by 8%.

Numbers-based election

Approximately 968 million people are registered to vote in this, India’s largest election to date. Of them, 48% are women, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. 18 million people will vote for the first time, according to Reuters.

The poll Commission of India said that the seven-phase poll, spanning 554 constituencies and lasting 44 days, would take place due to the overwhelming number of voters.

The six-week election is predicted to be more expensive than the $14.4 billion U.S. presidential election of 2020, according to research firm OpenSecrets, located in Washington.

The company’s data revealed that India spent $8.6 billion on the general elections of 2019, which is $2.1 billion more than the U.S. presidential race of 2016.

On June 4, the results will be made public.

According to election commission data, there will be approximately a million polling places, 5.5 million electronic voting machines, and 15 million staff and security personnel supervising the election. This is because every registered voter is required to have access to a polling place within two kilometers of their residence.