India gears up for the world's largest democratic exercise, its general election, in May this year. While the upcoming elections may not be necessarily be groundbreaking for BJP, it may still prove to be a watershed moment for the political right, if Prime Minister Narendra Modi is able to recast its core nationalist ideology. The seven phase polls will begin from April 11 and the counting of votes will take place on May 23.
India is a young country with a median age of 27.9 years last year. By 2020, youth will make up 34 per cent of the country's population. Data from the Election Commission reveals that 45 million young people have become eligible to vote as they turned 18. In this year's polls, the youth will play a deciding factor. Youth had catapulted the BJP to power in its five main states with the highest proportion of young voters. Issues relating to the youth, education and jobs, are expected to take centre-stage in this election.
Congress and BJP Manifestos
The BJP is working on its 'Sankalp Patra' (manifesto). Home Minister Rajnath Singh is leading the BJP's manifesto committee for 2019. Last month, the BJP had started crowd-sourcing suggestions to complete its manifesto. It has launched a website, bharatkemannkibaat.com, a toll-free number and flagged off 300 trucks to crowd-source ideas. Reports said these trucks would visit 4,000 assembly constituencies with suggestion boxes to gather people's suggestions.
The Congress manifesto, meanwhile, promises a 100-day guaranteed urban employment programme with an opportunity to earn up to Rs 10,000 per month, a universal healthcare scheme, no strings attached loan for students to complete higher education, improved minimum support price and a complete farm loan waiver of up to Rs 200,000. Taking a rights-based approach followed by the successive Congress-led UPA governments, the party is likely to promise right to health, right to employment in urban areas and right to higher education in the polls.
The manifesto, which is expected to be released on Thursday, is likely to have Congress President Rauhl Gandhi's promise of minimum income guarantee scheme. The party is expected to promise employment for the educated unemployed youth by involving them in services like delivering water and electricity bills, meter reading, opening of small citizen service centres and collection of property tax. For each bill collected or delivered the small fee give in to a private contractor would go to the unemployed youth. Another major promise is likely to be right to higher education.
Rahul Gandhi speaks on poverty
Rahul Gandhi has promised a “surgical strike” on poverty and said his party had been working on how to eradicate it for the last six months. Speaking in a rally in Suratgarh, a day after declaring his party would roll out a minimum income guarantee scheme for the poorest 20 per cent households, if voted to power, Gandhi said only the rich could dream under the Narendra Modi rule.
Gandhi said, “We will eradicate poverty in the country. This is a 'dhamaka'. No country has done this in history. There should not be a single poor person in the country.” He said his party would work to reduce unemployment if it comes to power. Gandhi said, “If Modi gives money to the rich, the Congress will give money to the poor.” He alleged that Modi had helped those who had black money, Gandhi said those lifted from poverty by the UPA government had again been made poor in the last five years. He claimed around 140 million people were lifted from poverty by the UPA government.
On Monday, the Congress announced it will transfer Rs 6,000 a month in the bank accounts of 50 million families, comprising the poorest of the poor, if it comes to power, in an effort to turn the focus back on economic issues ahead of the next month's general elections. Gandhi unveiled his party's £3.6 billion campaign promise of a minimum income guarantee scheme called Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY). He said the big idea is to ensure that the basic income of every poor family in India does not fall below Rs 12,000 a month. “The 20 per cent poorest of poor families would get Rs 72,000 directly transferred in their accounts. This is the final assault on poverty,” Gandhi said. But, Rahul did not mention from where he will find the income to pay to every poor family in India.
On the other hand, the BJP had too unveiled a minimum income support scheme for farmers in its interim Budget on February 1st, 2019. Under the scheme, titled Kisan Yojana, cash will be transferred to beneficiaries, which hold 2 hectares of land or less, in three instalments of ₹2000 a year, culminating in a total payment of ₹6000 per year. According to most economists, BJP's offer would not cause much to the exchequer.
Income sops offered by the BJP and Congress
While it seems at this stage that the Congress' scheme is covering more of India's voters, more than two times as much. However, since the start of the year, the BJP has unveiled a number of additional sops for the electorate. In addition to the farmer handouts, the BJP outlined a pension scheme for informal sector workers in its interim budget. The scheme proposes a monthly pension of Rs 3,000 for those above the age of 60.
The government has earmarked an allocation of Rs 5 billion for the scheme. However, the cost is relatively small because it is counting on informal workers between the ages of 29 and 60 to make a contribution of Rs 100 a month. The total amount of people covered by the BJP's election sops now increases to 220 million people. The ruling administration is also offering tax breaks for workers in the formal sector that earn less than Rs 500,000 a year.
Also, the BJP has one more scheme to convincingly tip the scales in its favour. In early January 2019, Modi’s Cabinet approved a 10 per cent reservation for “economically backward upper castes” in government jobs and educational institutions. Meanwhile, as we wait for the Congress to come up with something as election campaigning intensifies, the minimum income guarantee scheme is positioned as the big elections announcement so far.
Can the BJP make inroads in the South?
The BJP has traditionally been perceived as a North Indian party, with limited influence beyond the Hindi-speaking states. Even in 2014, when the BJP swept the Lok Sabha elections, it won a mere 21 seat in the five southern states, or 19 per cent of the 112 seats on offer. In contrast, the saffron party won 60 per cent in the rest of the country.
Not only has the number of southern seats won by the BJP remained constant, the party has also failed to expand beyond its traditional strongholds in Karnataka. Acknowledging its shortcomings in the southern states in the previous elections, the BJP competed only in 67 seats. It secured a vote share of 31 per cent across these seats and won in 21 (31 per cent of contested seats). While this was lower than the BJP's national performance where it secured 40 per cent vote share and 66 per cent seats in the seats it contested, it was still be an improvement over the BJP's previous performance in the South.
In Karnataka, the BJP is a force to reckon with and it hopes to build on previous electoral successes. The BJP has been the best performing party in terms of total seats won in the state over the past three general elections (since 2004). The rest of South India, however, presents a far greater challenge for the BJP. Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu are bastions of regional parties, where the BJP has struggled historically.
In Orissa BJP is hoping to make electoral gains as Navin Patnaik is battling anti-incumbency. Having been in power for 19 years, Patnaik is facing anti-incumbency despite his personal popularity being very high. The East and Northeast have been untapped regions for the BJP as far as parliamentary constituencies are concerned. So, it is here that the saffron party is desperate to make gains.
BJP in war with Didi's TMC for victory over Bengal
The BJP has focused on West Bengal hoping to emerge as the direct challenger to Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, pushing Left parties and the Congress to the sidelines in the bid. Current trends indicate that the TMC very well holds its ground though the BJP could well emerge as its key opponent. This implies that in the Lok Sabha polls, the Trinamool could well retain the bulk of its seats and the BJP could emerge in second place with a reasonable increase in its seats share.
If one were to notice the trends since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the vote share of the Trinamool Congress has remained more or less unchanged. It has hovered around 45 per cent across the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the 2016 assembly polls and the Mood of the Nation poll. In case of the BJP, its vote share saw a significant dip in the 2016 assembly poll as compared to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls but has staged an impressive recovery ever since. There is not much of a variation in the Congress vote share though in the case of the Left, the Mood of the Nation poll indicates a sharp decline in its vote share as compared to the 2016 assembly polls.
If this trend continues in the next two months one is likely to see the Trinamool Congress see its seat share be more or less remain in the early thirties (it won 34 seats in 2014) with the BJP inching towards double digits (it won two seats in 2014) with the Left and the Congress conceding political space (they won two and four seats respectively in 2014).
Cash, liquor and freebies worth £54 mn seized since poll announcement
The Election Commission has announced that suspect cash, illegal liquor, and drugs worth about £54 million have been seized across the country since parliamentary election schedule was announced. Tamil Nadu recorded the maximum seizure of these illegal inducements, suspected to have been routed and used to bribe voters, worth £10.72 million, followed by Uttar Pradesh £10.45 million, Andhra Pradesh £10.34 and Punjab £9.28 million. Karnataka saw the total seizure of inducements and cash worth £2.65 million, Maharashtra £1.91 million and Telangana £820,000.
An EC official said the total value of seized items was £54 million. The polls were declared by the EC on March 10, and as per data updated till March 25, a total of £14.34 million suspect cash, £ 8.96 million worth of liquor, drugs valued at £13.17 million, gold and other precious metals worth £ 16.29 million and other freebies of £1.22 million have been seized, the EC data for all states for Lok Sabha polls said.
The commission has deployed hundreds of general observers, expenditure observers and static and mobile surveillance teams in the country to keep a check on flow of black money and other illegal gratification so that the level playing field of holding fair polls is not disturbed. The EC has banned using religion or seeking votes on religious issues.
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The man who cleaned up elections in India
TN Seshan
Fondly remembered as the man who cleaned up polls in the country, TN Seshan was the most admired Chief Election Commissioner. He lived a life mired in controversies for reforming the election scenario without cowering under the threats that came his way. His policies, their implementation, coupled with his strict demeanor had earned him the moniker 'Al-Seshan' (Alsatian). Some electoral “battles” that took place under his vigil were even dubbed 'Seshan versus Nation'.
Some of his key achievements include strict implementation of the model code of conduct during elections, guaranteeing issuance of voter Ids for the eligible electorate, putting a cap on a candidate’s expenditure in his/her campaign. He also ended several malpractices such as the distribution of liquor during elections, use of official machinery for campaigns, inciting caste or communal violence, using places of worship for campaigns, etc. The word during those days was “Politicians feared only God or TN Seshan”. His legacy continues to live on even to this day.
