Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, Sofiya Azad
India’s upcoming general election will be especially significant. While Modi is likely to win a third consecutive term, the BJP is targeting a two-thirds majority that could enable it to accelerate its Hindu-centric initiatives.
On 19 April, the world’s most populous democracy begins voting in a general election that will most likely result in Narendra Modi’s return as prime minister for a third consecutive five-year term. The last prime minister to win a third term was Jawaharlal Nehru in 1962. A Modi victory would see the incumbent prime minister accelerate his plans to make India the third-largest economy in the world within the next five years and to expand India’s influence on the regional and global stage. However, to implement its Hindu-centric initiatives, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would need a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament). This remains a challenge for the BJP.
Modi and the BJP likely to win Modi is likely to win these elections for three central reasons.
Firstly, he is by far the most popular leader in the country. As a result, throughout India, BJP candidates are seeking votes in his name rather than highlighting their own credentials and policies. On X (formerly Twitter), Indian ministers have added the phrase ‘Modi Ka Parivar’ (Modi’s family) after their names.
Modi’s popularity is in large part the result of his image as a strong and decisive leader, although this reputation has been built on a number of controversial actions and decisions. Such actions include the 2016 ‘demonetisation’, which banned 86% of currency notes in an effort to end corruption; his approval of the February 2019 air strike against Pakistan in response to a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir carried out by Jaysh-e-Mohammad (JeM) – a Pakistan-based terrorist group; the August 2019 revocation of articles 370 and 35A of the constitution, ending the special semi-autonomous status of India’s single Muslim-majority state (now union territory) of Jammu and Kashmir; and India’s handling of – and early economic recovery from – the COVID-19 pandemic. Modi has also overseen a period of accelerating economic growth. At US$4.11 trillion, India’s economy is the fifth largest and fastest growing among the major economies, with the IMF projecting strong growth at 6.8% in 2024 and 6.5% in 2025.
Modi is not without his critics. They point to a ‘divided’ and ‘broken’ India rather than a ‘booming’ one, with rising unemployment, inflation and inequity; falling foreign direct investment as a result of the slow pace of reforms and a skills gap; and his government’s mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic. He has faced limited criticism on national-security issues, however, due to opposition parties’ fears of being portrayed as anti-national.
Secondly, Modi has behind him the dedicated electoral machinery of the ruling BJP and the grassroots political activism of its associated Hindu nationalist organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. This enabled him to increase his party’s majority by 21 seats to 303 of 543 seats in the last general elections in 2019 – the highest number achieved by any political party since 1989 – despite receiving only about 37% of the total vote share. The BJP currently rules 16 of India’s 28 states (including four as part of a coalition government).
The BJP’s electoral campaign rests on ‘Modi ki guarantee’ (Modi’s guarantee), which aims to make India’s economy the third largest in the world (by achieving a US$6.69trn economy by 2030), reduce unemployment to below 5%, and increase labour-force participation to more than 50%. Under its ‘Viksit Bharat Sankalp’ action plan, the BJP aims to transform India into a developed country by 2047 – a year chosen to coincide with the 100th anniversary of India’s independence.
Thirdly, opposition parties’ primary objective appears to be to limit the number of BJP seats rather than win power for themselves. There is no opposition leader to counter Modi. Furthermore, opposition parties have had limited success in ensuring a coordinated and efficient India-wide seat-sharing arrangement. Although the primary opposition party, the Indian National Congress (INC), has formed an alliance with over two dozen regional parties under the umbrella of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, disagreement over seat-sharing continues in the key states of West Bengal and Punjab. The INC now rules only three states and is part of the ruling coalition in two other states.
Lacking a compelling ideological blueprint to counter the BJP’s influence, the INC’s ‘nyay’ (justice) campaign instead highlights five key ‘pillars’: employment opportunities, welfare policies, farmer schemes, reservation (aimed at enhancing affirmative action for marginalised communities) and caste census. The INC continues to criticise the government on unemployment, price rises and its alleged nexus with ‘crony capitalists’. It also accuses the BJP of endangering democracy by manipulating official machinery to make unconstitutional arrests (including of two sitting opposition chief ministers), raiding opposition parties’ offices, seeking to freeze opposition parties’ campaign funds, and curbing the media.
The BJP’s pursuit of a two-thirds majority Notwithstanding an expected anti-incumbency sentiment in a few states, the BJP seeks to return to power by winning a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha. It is rhetorically aiming to win 370 seats – eight more than required to achieve its goal – with the number intended to remind the electorate of Modi’s decisive action in revoking Article 370. This amount plus the BJP’s regional allies could provide a total of over 400 seats for the NDA.
Winning a two-thirds majority would be significant because it would provide the BJP with the seats needed to implement Hindu-centric initiatives and change the constitution, including the secular framework of the country – though the Modi government has officially denied it has this aim. It increasingly appears that an early action of the next Modi government – if it were to achieve this goal – would be to change the name of the country from India to Bharat, its official Sanskrit name.
Securing a two-thirds majority will be a challenge for the BJP and its regional allies, however. To reach the required number by itself, the BJP would need an additional 59 seats (slightly fewer if it were to win alongside allies). This will only be possible if it is able to re-assert its political dominance in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan, which provide nearly half the total number of Lok Sabha seats, and replicate this in eastern and southern India, where it has made few inroads traditionally. It seeks to do this by reigniting nationalism among Hindus, who comprise 80% of India’s population.
The BJP’s appeals to Hindu nationalism have resulted in polarisation and fears of Hindu majoritarianism among the minority Muslim and other religious communities. Divisive actions that have fuelled such fears include the construction and inauguration of a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Ram in Ayodhya in January 2024 (at which Modi played a lead role), built on the disputed site of a sixteenth century mosque destroyed by Hindutva mobs in 1992; the renewed plan to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act in March 2024, which is considered discriminatory and unconstitutional by many critics as it would provide citizenship on the basis of religion; and the laying of provisions for a Uniform Civil Code, criticised for being divisive and discriminatory against Muslims and other minority communities. The BJP does not have a single Muslim member of parliament in the current Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha (upper house).
No comments:
Post a Comment