On June 2, Telangana, an otherwise landlocked region in the center of India, will become the country’s newest state, carved out of the existing state of Andhra Pradesh.
Today, Telangana’s voter determined the shape of the new state’s first-ever government, as they elect all 119 members of the incipient state legislative assembly.
What is Telangana and why is it soon to become India’s 29th state? Continue reading Telangana, India’s newest state, votes to determine its first government
With just three rounds to go between today and May 12, and just 194 seats left to fill, Indians are once again going to the polls today to elect MPs in 89 constituencies.
The biggest prize of today’s voting is Gujarat, the home state of Narendra Modi, where his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) hopes to win the lion’s share of the state’s 26 seats in the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the lower house of India’s parliament.
Gujarat
Modi (pictured above in a ‘selfie’ posted to Twitter after voting earlier today in Ahmedabad) has served as chief minister of Gujarat since 2001, and he’s won three consecutive elections, most recently in December 2012. Much of his campaign revolves around his own stewardship of the Gujarati economy over more than a decade. The promise that Modi, as India’s next prime minister, can bring the ‘Gujarat model,’ with its high level of development, GDP growth and investment, to all of India is an alluring prospect. But it’s questionable that there’s anything like a ‘Gujarat model’ at all — it’s probably more accurate to talk about a ‘Gujarat narrative’ that begins well before Modi took office. While Modi has worked hard to bring investment to his state, and while he may be credited with some of the state’s economic success over the past 13 years, it’s not certain just how he would effect the lessons of Gujarat’s development throughout the rest of India.
But for today’s purposes, the governing Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस), which currently controls 11 of the state’s 26 constituencies, will almost certainly lose many of them. As in so many other states across India, Congress, under the uncertain leadership of Rahul Gandhi, seems destined to mark historical losses. Continue reading India Lok Sabha elections: Phase 7
Today, Indians in eleven states (and a territory) will vote in the sixth phase of its elections.
In terms of seats, today’s phase of voting (in 117 constituencies) is only marginally less important than last week’s April 17 phase, in which 121 seats to the decided.
What’s more, after today’s voting, we’ll be well over the halfway mark of voting in all 543 constituencies of the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा) — following today’s phase, we’ll be 195 constituencies away from the end of what’s been the largest, longest election in Indian history.
So where are the key points in today’s round of voting?
Tamil Nadu
The biggest prize is the southern state of Tamil Nadu, which elects all 39 of its Lok Sabha representatives today. It’s one of India’s most populous states, with over 72.1 million people, and it’s also one of India’s largest state economies, with its capital Chennai a primary manufacturing, services and financial hub.
Unfortunately for Narendra Modi, the frontrunner to become the next prime minister, and for Rahul Gandhi, who hopes to lead the current government to a third consecutive term in power, neither of India’s two national parties are expected to win very many votes here. Continue reading India Lok Sabha elections: Phase 6
As Narendra Modi looks for new places where the ‘Modi wave’ can power him to a majority government, one of those place won’t be Tamil Nadu.
That’s because, like so many other states in India, Tamil Nadu is dominated by regional parties. Though the politics of Tamil Nadu are unique to the state, it’s a case study in how regional politics can influence and distort national outcomes.
With over 72.1 million people, Tamil Nadu, which sprawls along India’s southeastern coast, is one of the biggest prizes in India’s nine-phase, five-week marathon election contest, boasting 39 seats in the 545-member Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the lower house of India’s parliament.
Tamil Nadu has the second-largest state economy in India, after Maharashtra (home to Mumbai). Chennai, its capital, is a hub for manufacturing, services and finance, and it and other state cities benefit from being part of the great IT sector hinterland that’s drawn so much foreign investment to Bangalore, which lies just to Tamil Nadu’s northwestern corner.
Though Kerala (0.790) and Delhi (0.750) lead India with the highest state/territory-level human development indices, Tamil Nadu’s HDI (0.570) is equivalent to that of Maharashtra, making it higher than the Indian average (0.467) or in Gujarat (0.527). Tamil Nadu’s GSP per-capita is also, slightly, higher than Gujarat’s. That’s significant because Modi is largely campaigning on the economic prowess of the ‘Gujarat model‘ and his economic stewardship of Gujarat since 2001.
Though Modi and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) are expected to win this spring’s election, it’s still an open question if he and the BJP’s allies can amass the 272 seats that they’ll need to form a secure majority government.
One of the reasons for that is the dominance of regional parties like those in some of India’s largest states, including Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha.
Amma’s state
That also means that the state’s chief minister and its virtual strongwoman, Jayalalithaa (pictured above), a former Tamil cinema actress, could become one of several outsiders to which Modi turns to form a coalition. If there’s anyone in India who’s perfected the personality cult, it’s Jayalalithaa, whose face greets you throughout the state, from rural towns to urban centers like Chennai (formerly Madras) and Madurai. Known affectionately as ‘Amma’ (‘mother’ in Tamil), her government is responsible for setting up ‘Amma canteens‘ to provide subsidized food to the poor, providing ‘Amma bottled water‘ to deal with chronic shortages and even establishing ‘Amma theaters‘ for entertainment purposes.
For the more prurient of you, here’s an awesome clip of Jayalalithaa pushing the sexual boundaries of Indian cinema (she was the first Tamil actress to appear in a skirt):
Continue reading Jayalalithaa, Tamil actress-turned-strongwoman, could play India’s kingmaker
It’s election day once again in India, and today marks the fifth phase of the nine-phase marathon to determine India’s national government. Indians today will elect 121 members of the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा). That makes today’s round, just barely, the most important of all nine phases. Together with the April 24 phase next week, Indians will choose 43% of the seats in the entire Lok Sabha in just two rounds of voting.
So what are the keys to the voting in today’s phase?
Here’s our trusty map of India’s states, as a reference point before we jump into the state-by-state breakdown:
Karnataka
The biggest prize is the south-central state of Karnataka, a state of over 61 million Indians, home to Bangalore and India’s high-tech sector. All of its 28 representatives to the Lok Sabha will be elected in today’s voting.
More than any other state in India, it’s been especially impermeable to the ‘Modi wave’ that polls predict will lift the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) and its prime ministerial candidate, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, to power.
In the May 2013 state elections, the BJP lost control of the Karnataka state government, terminating the BJP’s historic first government in India’s south. The loss had less to do with Modi than with corruption and infighting within the state party. Nonetheless, the BJP was wiped out, losing 72 seats in the state assembly, and damaging its reputation in advance of this year’s national elections.
With the memories of the disastrous BJP state government still fresh, Karnataka could be the rare bright spot for India’s governing party, the Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस), which could pick up eight seats for a total of 14, according to the latest NDTV poll.
One of the marquee contests is in the Bangalore South constituency, where Congress’s candidate is Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekan, running against the BJP’s Ananth Kumar.
Rajasthan
The BJP’s most impressive victory in last November’s state elections occurred in the arid, western state of Rajasthan, India’s eight-most populous state, where Congress lost 75 seats and the BJP gained 84 in the state’s legislative assembly. It was the BJP’s best-ever performance and Congress’s worst-ever performance.
So Modi has high hopes here, in a state that lies just north of his own home state of Gujarat — if the BJP runs away with this election and forms India’s next government, it will be largely because of the lopsided victories it’s expected to win here and elsewhere in India’s north.
Twenty constituencies, out of a total of 25, will vote in Rajasthan today, including the historic city of Jodhpur (pictured above).
Naveen Patnaik is one of India’s longest-serving chief ministers — and one of its most popular.
Though his chances of winning a fourth consecutive term in Odisha’s state government are high, he faces a difficult challenge in state elections that are being held concurrently with national elections to determine India’s next government. Odisha holds the second of two phases — the first was on April 10 — to elect its 21 representatives to the national parliament, as well as all 147 members of its state-level Legislative Assembly.
Odisha, with 41.95 million residents, is basically as populous as Argentina. It’s a sprawling state on the central coast of eastern India, nudged to the southwest of West Bengal and Bangladesh. Formerly known as Orissa, the state is the home of most of India’s Oriya/Odia language speakers. It’s one of the most Hindu states in India (over 94% of the population), with a larger Christian population (2.4%) than Muslim population (2.1%).
Politics in Odisha are essentially a three-party affair, including the familiar national parties, the center-left Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस) and the center-right, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी).
But echoing an increasing trend throughout India, the dominant state-level party for more than a decade now has been the Biju Janata Dal (BJD, ବିଜୁ ଜନତା ଦଳ), which holds an overwhelming advantage in the Legislative Assembly:
Patnaik, like so many Indian politicians, is the son of another prominent politician — Biju Patnaik, who served as chief minster in the 1960s and again in the 1990s. Continue reading India’s ‘Mr. Clean’ seeks fourth term in Odisha elections
After a huge third phase in which 91 constituencies of India’s election were decided on April 10, Saturday’s fourth phase of India’s general election is barely a trickle — just seven seats.
It’s the last ‘miniature’ phase of the election — the next five phases, through May 12, will determine the remaining 432 (out of 543) seats of India’s Lok Sabha (लोक सभा).
The April 12 phase coincides with elections to determine Sikkim’s legislative assembly, and it will elect Sikkim’s sole representative to the Lok Sabha.
The Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF, सिक्किम प्रजातान्त्रिक मोर्चा) dominates Sikkimese politics, and its chief minister Pawan Kumar Chamling, who has been in power since 1994, hopes to win a record fifth consecutive term in office. Though the SDF isn’t formally part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), it might be expected to back Narendra Modi and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) if it has enough strength to form a government, as widely expected.
Where are the other six constituencies?
Without offense to northeastern India, Goa or Sikkim, the fourth phase won’t determine the country’s next government.
The photo above shows a statute in the city of Namchi depicting Guru Rinpoche, the patron saint of Sikkim.
Sikkim is the least populous state in India, with just 610,577 residents.
It’s also one of India’s more remote states, nudged in the Himalayan mountains with Chinese Tibet to its north, Nepal to its west and Bhutan to its east. Darjeeling, the town in West Bengal state known so well for the tea of the same name, lies just south of Sikkim. In the colonial period, in fact, Darjeeling was part of Sikkim.
But its state elections will take the spotlight briefly this weekend, when its chief minister Pawan Kumar Chamling tries to win a fifth consecutive term — if he does, he could become the longest-serving chief minister in India’s history.*
Chamling leads the Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF, सिक्किम प्रजातान्त्रिक मोर्चा), which is about as dominant a regional force as you’ll find in India. Not only does it hold Sikkim’s one seat in the national parliament, but it holds every single at in Sikkim’s 32-member legislative assembly. Continue reading Chamling hopes to break record as India’s longest-serving chief minister
The first two phases of India’s national parliamentary elections seemed less like an appetizer than an amuse bouche.
But after a slow start that saw voting in just 13 constituencies confined to seven relatively isolated states in India’s far northeast, the third phases gets underway today with a blast.
Unlike the first two rounds, the April 10 phase, which will determine 91 out of 543 constituencies in the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), will have a real impact in deciding India’s next government.
Before going any further, here’s a map of India’s states for reference:
Kerala
Theoretically, today’s largest prize is the southern state of Kerala (pictured above), where all 20 constituencies will hold elections today in the tropical southwestern state of 33.4 million.
But, by and large, it’s a race between the center-left and the far left. Continue reading India Lok Sabha elections: Phase 3
Among the most anticipated races in India’s third election phase today will be in the National Capital Territory of Delhi, where Arvind Kejriwal hopes to make just as large a breakthrough in national politics as he did back in December in local politics.
Kejriwal’s new anti-corruption party, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP, आम आदमी की पार्टी, Common Man Party) burst onto the national spotlight when it won 28 out of 70 seats in Delhi’s legislative assembly, largely by stealing seats from the 16-year government of chief minister Sheila Dikshit’s Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस).
Though the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) won 31 seats, Kejriwal won the begrudging support of the eight remaining Congress legislators to form a government that would ultimately last just 49 days.
But following his resignation after a high-stakes fight over an anti-corruption bill, Kejriwal turned immediately to the national election campaign, with hopes of doing this spring what he managed to do in Delhi last December — energize voters both disenchanted by a decade of Congress rule and uncertain about a BJP-led government.
There are signs, however, that Kejriwal may have made a mistake — instead of building on its Delhi gains, the AAP could fail to make any advances nationally and it could even find itself embarrassed on its home turf.
Kejriwal’s record as chief minister
No one will dispute that it was a very busy 49 days. Continue reading Did Kejriwal err in resigning position as Delhi’s chief minister?
Voting today ended in the second phase of India’s marathon election. So what was at stake in the first two rounds?
Not much.
The two rounds were confined to the ‘seven sister states’ in India’s far northeastern corner, nudged to the east of Bangladesh and to the west of China and Burma. The seven states, just southeast of the Himalayas, are home to just 45 million of India’s 1.24 billion citizens. Part of the area is claimed by the People’s Republic of China, an issue that has long strained the bilateral Indo-Chinese relationship — China claims significant part of Arunachal Pradesh as ‘south Tibet.’
Bangladeshi migration into the region has also been one of the more politically fraught issues in recent years.
The first round, which kicked off on April 7, included just six constituencies:
The second round included nearly just as few (seven):
The seven states contribute just 24 seats to the 543-member Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), and the key prize is Assam, with 14 seats.
Although the governing Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस) is facing annihilation elsewhere across the country, its chances in Assam look good. The largest pre-election poll, conducted by NDTV, estimates that Congress could actually make real gains, winning up to 12 seats in the state.
Tarun Gogoi, the state’s popular chief minister, has held power since 2001, and Congress dominates the state’s legislative assembly. The Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) has only a minor presence in the state, and competes against several Assam-based regional parties. That may be changing somewhat as Narendra Modi, the BJP prime ministerial candidate, and his allies wage a national campaign, but Assam will certainly be one of the few states where Congress seems destined to shine, notwithstanding its potential collapse at the national level.
For those of you who might be keeping track at home, here’s a chart of the nine phases of India’s elections between April 7 and May 12.
Tomorrow, on April 10, India kicks of the first ‘major’ phase of the election — after holding votes in just 13 constituencies in the first two round earlier this week (and the election in Mizoram state has now actually been delayed until April 11), fully 92 constituencies will kick off voting across 14 states and territories, including all of the seats in Delhi, Haryana and Kerala.
India, throughout all nine phases, will vote in 543 constituencies to the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the House of the People, the lower house of India’s parliament.
In addition, it’s worth noting that three states will hold elections for their own legislative assemblies simultaneously:
The results are expected to be announced on May 16.
Image credit to IBNLive.
| Round: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | |
| Date: | 7-Apr | 9-Apr | 10-Apr | 12-Apr | 17-Apr | 24-Apr | 30-Apr | 7-May | 12-May | |
| State/Territory | Total | |||||||||
| Uttar Pradesh | 80 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 15 | 18 | |||
| Maharashtra | 48 | 10 | 19 | 19 | ||||||
| Andhra Pradesh | 42 | 17 | 25 | |||||||
| West Bengal | 42 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 6 | 17 | ||||
| Bihar | 40 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 6 | |||
| Tamil Nadu | 39 | 39 | ||||||||
| Madhya Pradesh | 29 | 9 | 10 | 10 | ||||||
| Karnataka | 28 | 28 | ||||||||
| Gujarat | 26 | 26 | ||||||||
| Rajasthan | 25 | 20 | 5 | |||||||
| Odisha | 21 | 10 | 11 | |||||||
| Kerala | 20 | 20 | ||||||||
| Assam | 14 | 5 | 3 | 6 | ||||||
| Jharkhand | 14 | 4 | 6 | 4 | ||||||
| Punjab | 13 | 13 | ||||||||
| Chhattisgarh | 11 | 1 | 3 | 7 | ||||||
| Haryana | 10 | 10 | ||||||||
| National Capital Territory of Delhi | 7 | 7 | ||||||||
| Jammu and Kashmir | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||
| Uttarakhand | 5 | 5 | ||||||||
| Himachal Pradesh | 4 | 4 | ||||||||
| Arunachal Pradesh | 2 | 2 | ||||||||
| Goa | 2 | 2 | ||||||||
| Manipur | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| Meghalaya | 2 | 2 | ||||||||
| Tripura | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| Andaman and Nicobar Islands (terr.) | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Chandigarh (terr.) | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Dadra and Nagar Haveli (terr.) | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Daman and Diu (terr.) | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Lakshadweep (terr.) | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Mizoram | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Nagaland | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Puducherry (terr.) | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Sikkim | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| TOTAL | 543 | 6 | 7 | 91 | 7 | 121 | 117 | 89 | 64 | 41 |
With India’s massive nine-phase election now underway, what happens if Narendra Modi doesn’t quite win a majority in India’s parliament?
Everyone believes that Modi, the longtime chief minister of Gujarat, and his conservative, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) are headed for a historic victory. But that might not be enough — and if history is any guide, it won’t be enough, even taking into account the seats of the BJP’s coalition partners in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
That could mean that India’s ‘Third Front,’ a motley group of regional and Marxist/socialist parties, could team up with the remnants of the center-left Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस) and the few parties that remain in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). India has had Third Front governments in the past, but it’s a path that traditionally leads to acrimony, dysfunction and, sooner rather than later, new elections.
But if the BJP performs as well as polls widely suggest it might, there could be no doubt that the BJP (and Modi) have a stronger mandate to govern India and a stronger claim on forming the government than a rag-tag coalition of a dozen or more parties.
In that scenario, the BJP may be forced to turn to additional parties — and their price for support might require that the BJP jettisons Modi as its prime minister. That’s when things get really interesting, and it’s why the internal rifts inside the BJP over the past two years will become so important if and when the BJP/NDA wins the election with less than an absolute majority. In particular, it means that the rift between Modi and the elder statesman of the BJP, Lal Krishna Advani (pictured above, left, with Modi) could determine the identity of India’s next prime minister. Continue reading Could LK Advani become India’s next prime minister?
We’re beginning to hit the peak of what’s perhaps the busiest world election season of the past few years.
What began as a slow year with boycotted votes in Bangladesh and Thailand in the first two months of 2014 snowballed into a busier March, with important parliamentary elections in Colombia, the final presidential vote in El Salvador, parliamentary elections in Serbia, a key presidential election in Slovakia, and municipal elections that upended national politics in France, The Netherlands and Turkey.
But the pace only gets more frenetic from here.
Between today and Wednesday, five countries (and one very important province) on three continents will go to to the polls: Continue reading Spring 2014 voting blitz: five days, six elections
It’s the most populous state in the world’s largest democracy.
It’s the great heartland of Hindustan along India’s north-central border, home to the Taj Mahal, home to seven of India’s 13 prime ministers, and the traditional base of the Nehru-Gandhi family, which has given India three prime ministers, and hopes to give India its next prime minister in Rahul Gandhi.
It’s Uttar Pradesh (which translates to ‘northern province’), and Narendra Modi’s path to becoming India’s next prime minister runs right through it.
A sketch of India’s most populous state
With 199.6 million residents, it’s nearly as populous as Brazil — and with 80 seats up for grabs in the 545-member Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the state is by far the largest prize in India’s parliamentary elections, which kick off April 7 and will be conducted in nine phases that conclude on May 12. Given the sheer size of the state, voters in Uttar Pradesh will go to the polls in six of the nine phases,** spanning virtually the entire voting season.
That means that Uttar Pradesh holds about one-third of the seats any party would need to win a majority in the Lok Sabha, the lower (and more consequential) house of the Indian parliament.
Though it lies in the heart of the ‘Hindi belt,’ which might otherwise make it fertile territory for Modi’s conservative, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी), it won’t necessarily be the easiest sell for Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat since 2001.
In contrast to Gujarat, which is one of the wealthiest states of India, Uttar Pradesh is one of the poorest — it had a state GDP per capita of around $1,586 (as of 2009), less than 50% of Gujarat’s equivalent. Continue reading The path to India’s next government runs through Uttar Pradesh