In seven phases from April 11 until May 19, 2019 some 900 million Indian voters had the chance to elect their 543 Lower House (Lok Sabha) members. Voter turnout reached a record 67%. With the results published in 542 of the 543 electoral districts, it is clear that Prime Minister Modi’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 349 of the 543 seats, which gives the ruling coalition a huge majority to continue their work. Prime Minister Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alone won a majority of 303 seats.
The oppositional Indian National Congress (INC) party, which managed to win the recent regional elections in Uttar Pradesh (India’s largest state with some 200 million inhabitants), Bihar and Rajasthan, could not repeat those successes on the national level with its United Progressive Alliance (UPA), which only won 82 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats. Third came the Mahagathbandhan or Grand Alliance (MGB) with 15 seats. Other parties and candidates won 96 seats.
The BJP managed to come back in states such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, were it had lost the regional power in December 2018. In Narendra Modi’s home state of Rajasthan, the BJP won all 25 Lok Sabha seats.
Modi’s NDA won 349 seats despite some ill-conceived policies such as the demonetisation and GST. Others were less successful than expected such as the 100 percent Open Defecation Free policy.
Modi’s economic successes are limited. In April 2019, India’s unemployment rate rose to 7.6%, the highest since October 2016. From October to December 2018, India’s economy grew 6.6%. This may sound good in Western ears, but for a third world economy that has a lot of catch up to this, this number may not be bad, but GDP growth is not great either.
Corruption, the miserable infrastructure, the caste system, these are just a few of India’s fundamental problems which Prime Minister Modi must address in the future. The voters gave him credit but, rather sooner than later, he will have to deliver more than just to rise India’s stature on the international level.
Photo of Narendra Modi by Jasveer10 made in 2016. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49295786.
Further reading: our book review of Ruchir Sharma: Democracy on the Road.
Added at May 24, 2019 at 11:18 Berlin time. Article enlarged at 12:00 Berlin time.
