Indian elections for the Lok Sabha are round the corner with BJP’s Narendra Modi expecting to become country’s prime minister for a third time on the trot. Lok Sabha elections in India are a long-drawn affair as is borne out by the fact that they span over 6 weeks and in the current case they will begin from 14 April and their results will be announced on 4 June.
The electorate consisting of 970 million voters will elect 543 members for the Lok Sabha for a five-year term. Indian elections protocol is so varied that the polls will be held in seven phases at over a million polling stations.
The staggered polling allows the government to deploy tens of thousands of troops to prevent violence that erupts very so often. The time frame also allows the election authorities to transport election officials and voting machines as instead of paper votes India uses electronic voting machines.
The election follows the Westminster style that is known as first-past-the- post system in which the candidate winning the most votes is declared the winner. A majority of 272 is required for forming the government and any party or coalition that secures it wins the ultimate prize.
After the electoral dominance of Modi’s BJP since a decade, questions have arisen about the transparency and fair play regarding the electoral exercise. It is a well-known fact that democratic governance is held reverential once those who lose elections do not object about the fairness of the process.
If all participants are not happy and complain that they have been short-changed, then the process is undermined. Since Modi’s ascendance Indian democratic process has become contentious and it is no more a matter of victory and defeat, but it has become a question whether the elections are free and fair.
The most worrying aspect disputing the electoral exercise is the highly selective law enforcement by the state that, on behest of the ruling BJP, consistently targets opposition parties and leaders.
In this context the latest act was the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal, leader of Aam Aadmi Party and serving chief minister of Delhi on accusation of corruption that he declared are trumped up. The principal opposition Congress party has its funds frozen by Income Tax authorities. Moreover, the Election Commission of India has also become controversial as one of its members abruptly resigned providing no explanation.
This action was followed up by the rather hurried appointment of two new members of the Election Commission by the BJP government overlooking suggestions by the Supreme Court of India, and the opposition, for a more consultative mechanism. There are also deep concerns about electronic voting machines that are propagated to be free of tampering, but they have not been able to gain widespread public trust. The only way to bring about trust is to base it on verification, but the Election Commission has refused to engage with the opposition on this matter.
The forthcoming election will be a contest between populist and avowed Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi against a vast matrix of opposing political forces that have been beaten twice by BJP in two consecutive national elections.
The 73-year-old Modi has very successfully fused religion with politics and is considered a hero by the country’s majority Hindu population. Though India under Modi’s rule has enhanced its global status, yet his tenure has also been marked by rising unemployment and glaring income disparities.
There has been unprecedented rise in the attacks by Hindu nationalists against minorities, particularly Muslims that has provoked international reprobation. In addition, there are growing complaints about a shrinking space for dissent and free media as BJP government has not hesitated to coerce internationally acclaimed media institutions such as BBC.
Pitched against Modi’s BJP is a panoply of opposition parties that have united under an umbrella organization known as Indian National Development Alliance dubbed as INDIA. This broader alliance of national and regional parties has fielded a single primary candidate in most constituencies but differences in outlook and convictions have hampered the opposition to make any serious impact against BJP’s dominance.
There is however a widespread concern about the gradual erosion of traditional democratic convictions adhered to by the Indian democratic governance as Modi’s autocratic rule has adversely affected the process of free elections, independent judicial institutions and a thriving and independent media. Due to these problematic developments Indian governance is broadly categorised as a hybrid system that is neither a full democracy nor a full autocracy.
It is noticed that extra-centralisation has strained the federalism of India with the result that there are increasing tensions visible in the federating units particularly the prosperous south.
Though India’s economic growth is rated to be amongst the fastest growing in the world yet some policies undertaken by Modi regime has failed to generate enough jobs for young Indians who have developed a depressing reliance on free food and housing that the regime has undertaken to woo voters and may come unstuck in the days to come.
The U.N.’s latest Asia-Pacific Human Development Report lists India among the top countries with high income and wealth inequality and this analysis negates the claims of unprecedented economic growth of the BJP regime.
