India's parliamentary elections have begun, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on the verge of another victory. The opposition has fallen behind in polls. Also because the government is giving her less and less leeway.
2024 is a global super election year - and the biggest poll of all has begun in India. The parliamentary election will now take several weeks; 2,660 parties are registered for the election, most of them smaller regional parties. However, only the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which will most likely give its popular Prime Minister Narendra Modi a third five-year term in office, has a chance of winning the election. The largest opposition party, the Indian National Congress, is far behind in the polls. Voting started on Friday morning in 102 electoral districts in 21 states and so-called union territories.
With its National Alliance for Democracy, the BJP already holds over 350 of the 543 seats in parliament, 303 of which are its own. The party wants to further expand this majority. The BJP leaves nothing to chance. It is tightly organized and has tailored its election campaign entirely to the Prime Minister. Instead of a party election manifesto, it published the booklet “Modi ki Guarantee”: personal guarantees given by Narendra Modi.
India under Modi: Opposition in distress
The BJP's official Modi biography tells of a boy who grew up as the third of six children, the son of a tea seller or "chaiwallah". This designation has earned Modi the sympathy of ordinary people for years. His story is deliberately intended to contrast with India's elite, urbane politicians of the past. People like Rahul Gandhi, the Congress Party's top candidate, who studied at Cambridge and Harvard and whose father and grandmother were heads of government - and both were assassinated in office. His great-grandfather was India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. However, he is not related to Mahatma Gandhi.
The BJP touts its welfare programs for the poor, the rapid development of public infrastructure and high economic growth - most recently eight percent - which has pushed India into fifth place among the world's largest economies. But even under Modi, the gap between rich and poor is as wide as ever. According to a study from January this year, one percent of Indians own more than 40 percent of the country's wealth. But the opposition has so far been unable to take advantage of this - even if Gandhi accuses the BJP of doing nothing about poverty.
India under Modi: Opposition in distress before the election
The opposition is weak and fragmented. But above all, Modi and the BJP are making things increasingly difficult for their opponents: critics accuse the government of a creeping concentration of power and obstruction of the judiciary and the media. Tax investigators have targeted dozens of opposition politicians for alleged corruption or money laundering. The tax authorities froze the Congress party's bank accounts, which massively hindered their election campaign. Corruption is also endemic in the BJP and throughout the civil service. India is only ranked 93rd out of 180 in Transparency International's corruption index, behind its authoritarian rival China (ranked 76th).
This also drove Arvind Kejriwal to throw his hat into the ring a few years ago. He founded the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), or “party of the common people,” with the main goal of rooting out corruption. Kejriwal is now chief minister of the capital New Delhi, and his AAP also governs the state of Punjab. Apparently he was becoming a threat to the BJP as it recently had him arrested for allegedly accepting bribes from liquor manufacturers. In addition, Rahul Gandhi was expelled from parliament for several months in March 2023 for allegedly defaming the Modi surname, and at times he was even threatened with imprisonment.
India: Protests against the arrest of opposition politician Kejriwal
As the crackdown on the opposition continues to tighten, analysts and Modi opponents warn that this could be the most lopsided election in India's history. Two weeks ago, thousands demonstrated against Kejriwal's arrest at a "Save Democracy" rally in New Delhi. The fight here is to protect democracy and the constitution, Congress Party MP Deepender Singh Hooda told reporters at the rally. “This fight is for justice and truth.” The Congress party, like the AAP and two dozen other parties, belongs to the opposition center-left alliance called INDIA, short for “Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance.”
India's opposition is also suffering from strife
But the BJP is not solely to blame for the opposition's misery. The INDIA alliance is divided, explains Adrian Haack, head of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation office in New Delhi. “In many states, their candidates compete against each other and cannibalize each other in this way.” The political climate is charged, says Haack, and black and white thinking is pronounced. “BJP voters simply see the opposition as corrupt dynasties. Conversely, if you talk to opposition voters, they place the government on an autocratic spectrum.”
Among other things, the opposition criticizes the government's policies, which are increasingly tailored to the majority of Hindus, especially the 200 million Muslims who fear for their rights. But almost eight out of ten Indians have a positive opinion of Modi, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center in Washington. According to Haack, this is also because 80 percent of Indians are Hindus, many of whom like the Hindu-friendly politics. When Modi inaugurated the controversial Ram Temple in the city of Ayodhya in January, built on the site of a mosque destroyed by Hindu militants, the opposition stayed away. But across the country, many Hindus celebrated this provocative act.