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Colombo, April 30: Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised some hot button issues of a divisive nature in a speech at Rajasthan on April 21 and repeated them in other speeches, the voter turn-out in the second phase of the Indian parliamentary elections held on April 26, was poor.
The turnout was 62%, down from 63% in the first phase held on April 19. In India, anything less than 70% plus is not considered good polling.
State wise, the voting percentages in the second phase were as follows: 59% in Rajasthan; 54.8% in Madhya Pradesh; 53% in Bihar; 53.5% in Maharashtra; 53% in Bihar; and 52.7% in Uttar Pradesh. It was 77% in Tripura; 76% in Manipur; 72% in Chhattisgarh; 71.8% in West Bengal; 70.6% in Assam; 67.2% in Jammu and Kashmir; 64% in Kerala; and 64% in Karnataka.
In the second phase, 88 constituencies spread over 13 States went to the polls. In the first phase on April 19, 102 seats had gone to the polls. The total number of seats in the Lower House of the Indian parliament is 543. Elections are being held in seven phases up to June 1 and results of all will be announced on June 4.
In the second phase, all 20 seats in Kerala went to the polls. In Rajasthan, 13 of the 25 seats did. In Karnataka it was 14 of the 28 seats; in Uttar Pradesh, eight of the 80 seats; in Madhya Pradesh six of the 29 seats; in Assam, five of the 14 seats; in Chhattisgarh, three of the 11 seats; in Bihar five of the 40 seats; in Maharashtra, eight of the 48 seats; in West Bengal three of the 42 seats; in Tripura, one of the two seats; in Jammu and Kashmir one of the five seats; and in Manipur one of the two seats went to the polls.
Political Background
Presently, Kerala is governed by a left-wing alliance led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The BJP governs Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The BJP rules through alliances in Bihar and Maharashtra. The Congress governs Karnataka. West Bengal is governed by the All India Trinamool Congress Party.
Some parties in the Congress-led INDIA alliance are fighting against each other. In Kerala, the Congress and the Communists are contesting against each other. And in West Bengal, the Congress and the Communists are fighting against the Trinamool Congress even though all three are against BJP. They hope to combine at a later date to prevent the BJP from forming a government.
In the elections held in 2019, the BJP-led NDA had won 62 of the 88 seats which went to the polls in the second phase. Therefore, if past performance is any consideration, the BJP is on top.
Key Contestants
The key contestants in the second phase were: Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad in Kerala. He faced Annie Raja of the Communist Party of India and K Surendran of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Shashi Tharoor of the Congress in Thiruvananthapuram faced Rajeev Chandrasekhar of the BJP, a junior information technology in the Modi government and a wealthy businessman.
Livelihood Issues Dominate
All pre-polls surveys highlighted the fact that livelihood issues were predominant in the minds of the majority of Indian voters. According to Reuters, the Indian economy is projected to grow around 7%, but the economy has also seen a rise in retail prices. The cost of living for the poor has risen sharply in the last five years due to a surge in food prices. Retail inflation in 2022/23 accelerated to 6.7% from 5.5% in 2021/22.
The latest report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said that the number of people living in multidimensional poverty was 16.4% of India’s population in 2021. And the number of people, who lived below the US$ 2.15 per day poverty line, was 10% in India in 2021. India’s Central government offers free food grain to about 800 million people, about 57% of country’s 1.4 billion population as relief to the man at the bottom.
Nearly 16% of urban youth in the 15-29 years age group were unemployed in 2022/23, due to poor skills and lack of quality jobs. Estimates by private agencies were much higher.
Modi’s critics said his government had not fulfilled the poll promise of doubling farmers’ income by 2022. Farmers are still struggling for a fair minimum price for their produce. However, the government says steps like cash pay outs to farmers have brought relief.
Ground survey reports suggest that the common man sees Prime Minister Modi as a creative and bold leader, but there isn’t much love lost between the voters and the BJP legislators. It is said that the BJP had to field a large number of fresh candidates for the current elections because of this.
The BJP was expected to win the 2024 election mainly on the strength of Modi’s towering personality. But it later found that local issues, caste rivalries and the performance of local MPs and party leaders were being seriously assessed by the voter.
Unlike in 2019, when voters were swung to BJP’s side by the terrorist strike in Kashmir and Modi’s kinetic response, this time round there is no such striking national issue for people to rally round the BJP.
Communal Controversies
Perhaps disheartened by the low turnout in the first phase, BJP Supremo Narendra Modi raised emotive communal issues to get people to come out and vote for his party. On April 21, at a public meeting in Banswara in Rajasthan, Modi charged that if the Congress came to power it would give preference to communities which have large families and added that the Muslims would benefit from this as opposed to the Hindus. He also described Muslims as “infiltrators” (foreigners).
Modi also charged that the Congress would impose an inheritance tax which would be redistributed among Muslims and minorities and that the quotas for the Backward Classes and others would be stopped and re-distributed among Muslims. Even the gold necklace (Mangal Sutra) which married women wear would be seized, he said.
Political pundits interpreted these patently false utterances as stemming from a feeling that his earlier pitch on economic performance did not get the expected traction and that something truly brazen was called for.
The Election Commission of India sent a notice to the BJP on these speeches. Notice was also sent to the Congress for some remark made by Rahul Gandhi (perhaps to appear even handed).
Some observers familiar with right wing Hindu nationalistic politics in North India said that there is a split between the BJP and its parent ideological organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). The RSS is said to be unhappy about Modi’s personality cult which had relegated the RSS to the side lines. RSS insiders were quoted as saying that the organisers were not consulted on any matter and that all orders came from the PM’s office comprising hand-picked bureaucrats.
The RSS, which used to supply the foot-soldiers of the BJP in political campaigns and elections, was thought to have been inactive in the first and second phase of the elections.
There was also a division over the temple for Lord Rama which Modi built in Ayodhya, Rama’s birthplace in Uttar Pradesh in January this year to boost his electoral prospects. But his performing the consecration himself instead of getting it done by designated priests as per the Hindu tradition, and his decision to consecrate an incomplete temple, were opposed by the Sankaracharyas, the high priests of the Hindus. Two of the four Sankaracharyas did not attend the consecration. Ground reports from Uttar Pradesh said that the building of the Ram temple was not a major issue in the elections even in Uttar Pradesh.
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