2019 Indian general election

• Vellore, Tamil Nadu: Over ₹11 crore (US$1.5 million) in cash was seized in Vellore from DMK leaders – a regional party in Tamil Nadu. According to The News Minute, this cash is alleged to have been for bribing the voters.[24] Based on the evidence collected during the raids, the Election Commission of India cancelled 18 April election date in the Vellore constituency. The DMK leaders have denied wrongdoing and alleged a conspiracy.[25]
• Tripura East, Tripura: The Election Commission of India deferred polling from 18 to 23 April due to the law and order situation.[26] The poll panel took the decision following reports from the Special Police Observers that the circumstances were not conducive for holding free and fair elections in the constituency.[27]

The opposition parties have accused the NDA government is destroying democratic institutions and processes.[28] Modi denied and blamed Congress and the communists for undermining institutions including the police, CBI and the CAG, and cited the murder of BJP activists in Kerala and Madhya Pradesh.[29] The Congress party, other opposition parties and a group of retired civil servants have accused the ECI as being compromised and as endorsing the model code of conduct violations by Narendra Modi and other BJP political leaders during their campaign.[30][31] Another group of 81 retired civil servants, judges and academics disputed these allegations, made counter-allegations, and stated that the ECI acted fairly and similarly in alleged violations by either side. The group states that such political attacks on the ECI are a "deliberate attempt to denigrate and delegitimise the democratic institutions".[31][32]

According to The Times of India, the major economic achievements of the incumbent NDA government include an inflation rate less than 4 per cent, the GST reform, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. Its programs, in recent years, that have positively touched many among the Indian masses, include the Jan Dhan Yojana, rural cooking gas and electricity for homes.[33] According to the IMF, the Indian economy has been growing in recent years, its GDP growth rate is among the highest in the world for major economies, and India is expected to be the fastest growing major economy in 2019–2020 and 2020–2021, with real GDP projected to grow at 7.3 per cent.[34][35][36] The GDP growth data has been disputed[33] by a group of Indian social scientists, economists and the political opposition's election campaign, while a group of Indian chartered accountants has defended the data, the GDP calculation methodology, and questioned the motivations of those disputing the recent Indian GDP statistics.[37]

The opposition's election campaign has claimed that both the demonetisation and GST law have "seriously hit small business, farmers and casual labour", states The Times of India.[33][38] The incumbent has claimed that they inherited a country from the previous Congress-led government that was "a legacy of policy paralysis, corruption and economic fragility", and that the BJP-led government policies have placed India on better economic fundamentals and a fast gear.[39] Modi claims that his government pursued demonetisation in the national interest, his government has identified and de-registered 338,000 shell companies, identified and recovered ₹130,000 crore (US$18 billion) in black money since 2014, and almost doubled India's tax base.[40][41] The Congress party disputes the incumbents' claims, and has alleged that BJP offices have "become hubs of creating black money", and seeks a judicial inquiry into the Rafale deal with France and BJP's role in corruption.[42]

In response to the 2019 Pulwama attack, the Indian Air Force conducted airstrikes inside Pakistan — for the first time since the 1971 Indo-Pak war. The ongoing conflict with Pakistan became a significant factor in the election. The opposition parties accused of politicising the army, whilst the BJP countered their accusations by stating that such allegations raised by them were adversely affecting the morale of armed forces.[43]

According to the Pew Research Center, both before and after the outbreak of recent India-Pakistan tensions, their 2018 and 2019 surveys suggest that the significant majority of the voters consider Pakistan as a "very serious threat" to their country, and terrorism to be a "very big problem".[44][45]

According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of Indian voters consider the lack of employment opportunities as a "very big problem" in their country. "About 18.6 million Indians were jobless and another 393.7 million work in poor-quality jobs vulnerable to displacement", states the Pew report.[45]

A report on unemployment prepared by the National Sample Survey Office's (NSSO's) periodic labour force survey, has not been officially released by the government. According to Business Today, this report is the "first comprehensive survey on employment conducted by a government agency after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation move in November 2016". According to this report, the 2017–2018 "usual status"[note 4] unemployment rate in India is 6.1 per cent, which is a four-decade high.[46][note 4] The government has claimed that the report was not final.[51] According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) – a United Nations agency, unemployment is rising in India and the "unemployment rate in the country [India] will stand at 3.5 percent in 2018 and 2019 – the same level of unemployment seen in 2017 and 2016", instead of dropping to 3.4 percent as it had previously projected.[52] According to the ILO's World Employment Social Outlook Report, the unemployment rate in India has been in the 3.4 to 3.6 percent range over the UPA-government led 2009–2014 and the NDA-government led 2014–2019 periods.[52]

Opposition parties have claimed in their election campaign that the unemployment in India has reached crisis levels. The NDA government has denied the existence of any job crisis.[53] Prime minister Narendra Modi claimed that jobs are not lacking but the accurate data on jobs has been lacking.[54][55]

The opposition has attacked the NDA government's performance with the NSSO reported 6.1 percent unemployment data. Modi and his government have questioned this job statistics report, stating that "most surveys that try to capture unemployment rate are skewed since these did not cover the unorganised sector, which accounts for 85–90 per cent of jobs [in India]".[56]

The Congress party campaign has highlighted "agrarian distress" as an election issue.[57] The BJP campaign has highlighted that the Congress party had been in power for five generations of the Nehru dynasty and its past promises and campaign issues have been empty. It claims that the recent farmer loan waivers by Congress have not reached "even 10% of the farmers" nor has it helped the financial situation of the farmers. BJP highlights that its "Kisan Samman Nidhi" helps the small farmers at the time of seed planting through a direct deposit of ₹6000 to their accounts.[58] The opposition has accused this as being an attempt to lure voters.[59]

According to The Times of India, a group of farmer associations have demanded that the 2019 election manifesto of competing political parties should promise to "keep agriculture out of the World Trade Organization (WTO)" and that the interests of Indian farmers must not be compromised in global trade treaties.[60] They have also demanded loan waivers and income support for the agriculture sector.[60] According to the Business Standard and the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, India has witnessed record crop harvests in recent years including 2017 when its farmers grew more foodgrains than ever before.[61][62] However, the farmers consider the "low remunerative prices" they receive in the free market to be too low and a need for the Indian government to establish higher minimum support prices for agricultural products. These farmers consider this an issue for the 2019 general elections.[61]

The BJP has highlighted that the Congress party has relied on Nehru's dynasty for leadership since India's independence, its lack of internal party institutions and claimed that whenever Congress has been in power, the freedom of press and Indian government institutions have "taken a severe beating".[63][64] During the election campaign, its leaders have mentioned the Emergency of 1975, the nepotism, corruption and widespread abuses of human rights under the Congress rule in the past.[63][65][66] Congress-led alliance leader H. D. Kumaraswamy – the son of a former prime minister of India and the current chief minister of Karnataka, has countered that "India developed because of dynasty politics", stating that "dynasty politics are not the main issue, rather country's problems are".[67] The Congress has alleged hypocrisy by the BJP, claiming that the BJP itself forms alliances with dynasty-based parties such as the Akali Dal in Punjab, and that family relatives of senior BJP leaders such as Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley have been in politics too.[68]

According to an IndiaSpend report published by the BloombergQuint, the smaller and regional parties such as the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, Lok Jan Sakti Party, Shiromani Akali Dal, Biju Janata Dal and Samajwadi Party have higher densities of dynasty-derived candidates and elected representatives in recent years.[69][70] While both the Congress and the BJP have also nominated candidates from political dynasties, states the report, the difference between them is that in Congress "top party leadership has been handed down from generation to generation within the same [Nehru Gandhi dynasty] family", while there has been a historic non-dynastic diversity in the top leadership within the BJP. According to the report, while BJP has also nominated candidates from political dynasties, its better public relations operation "can leap to its defence when attacked on the same grounds".[69] In contrast to the IndiaSpend report, analysis of Kanchan Chandra, a prominent professor of Politics, of the 2004, 2009 and 2014 general elections included a finding that the Congress party has had about twice or more dynastic parliamentarians than the BJP at those elections, and higher than all major political parties in India except the Samajwadi Party.[71][note 5] Many of these dynastic politicians in India who inherit the leadership positions have never held any jobs and lack state or local experience, states Anjali Bohlken – a professor and political science scholar, and this raises concerns of rampant nepotism and appointments of their own friends, relatives and cronies if elected.[72] The BJP has targeted the Congress party in the 2019 elections for alleged nepotism and a family dynasty for leadership.[63][69]

In April 2019, raids conducted by the Income Tax Department found bundles of unaccounted for cash amounting to ₹281 crore (US$39 million), along with liquor and documentary evidence in premises of people with close connections to Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath of the Congress. Modi has highlighted this evidence to attack the Congress in its election campaign, alleging corruption is part of Congress party's culture.[73][74]

According to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, the election attracted a systematic attempt to spread misinformation through social media.[75][76] Facebook said that over a hundred of these advocacy accounts spreading disinformation were traced to "employees of the Pakistani military public relations wing".[75][76] Some others have been linked to the INC and BJP.[75][76]

Political parties spent over ₹53 crore (US$7.4 million) with the largest spending by BJP on digital platforms for online ads. The BJP placed 2,500 ads on Facebook while the Congress placed 3,686 ads.[77] According to a study by Vidya Narayanan and colleagues at the Oxford Internet Institute, social media was used by all the major parties and alliances, and all of them linked or posted divisive and conspiratorial content and images. According to Narayanan, "a third of the BJP's images, a quarter of the INC's images, and a tenth the SP-BSP's images were catalogued as divisive and conspiratorial".[78][79] The Narayanan et al. study added that "we observed very limited amounts of hate speech, gore or pornography in either platform samples" by BJP, Congress or SP-BSP, but the election did include proportionally more polarising information on social media than other countries except for the US presidential election in 2016.[79]

About 50,000 fake news stories were published during the recent Lok Sabha elections and shared 2 million times, according to a study conducted by fact-checking startup Logically.[80]

According to The Financial Times and other news sources, on 31 March 2019, the cable and satellite operators – such as Tata Sky, DishTV, and Videocon – added a new "NaMo TV" channel to the dozens of news and entertainment channels they already offer.[81][82][83] Further, independently, a Bollywood biopic named "PM Narendra Modi" starring Vivek Oberoi was due for release in early April. The NaMo TV channel exclusively focuses on replaying Narendra Modi's speeches, the live coverage of rallies by Modi and key leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and presenting the incumbent government's initiatives and achievements in the last five years to the audience that chooses to tune to the channel.[81] The election time Bollywood biopic, states The Financial Times, is "adulatory, which depicts his [Modi's] rise from humble origins as the son of a railway station tea-seller to a strongman who vows to avenge Pakistani terror attacks".[81]

The Indian opposition led by the Congress Party and activists opposed to the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party have expressed outrage and alleged that it violates India's election laws and the regulations on "broadcast channels" under the Programme Codes of the Cable TV Act of 1994.[81][82] The Bharatiya Janata Party and its supporters claim that this is an exercise of the "Right to Free Speech" protected by the Article 19 of the Indian Constitution, a means to address the bias against them and to communicate directly to the voters.[81] They also claim that the NaMo TV does not violate any regulations or laws, as similar "Direct-to-Home (DTH) operator channels" have already been distributed by cable and satellite operators in the past since 2006.[82] Others state that the audience has a choice to ignore or tune into the channel, and "only Modi's most devoted loyalists were likely to tune in". However, they state that if the BJP pressures public facilities and commercial establishments to show it exclusively during the elections then that would lead to abuse.[81] The Congress Party and activists have filed a complaint to the Indian Election Commission, demanding that the NaMo TV channel be stopped.[81] The Election Commission announced on 12 April that any content broadcast on the NaMo TV must be pre-approved by its committee, and only pre-certified content can be broadcast.[83] On 13 April 2019, the BJP submitted the contents of NaMo TV to the Election Commission designated "certification and monitoring committee" for its review and pre-certification.[84] The Election Commission ruled on 19 April 2019, that live speeches of Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders can be broadcast on NaMo TV as well as Twitter platform tweets can be broadcast by Rahul Gandhi and Congress leaders during the silence period. However, neither should mention the constituency or candidates covered by the silence period immediately prior to the polling date.[85]

The ECI blocked the release of the Modi biopic while the election is in progress.[86] The producers appealed this "stay" to the Supreme Court.[87] The film was released on 24 May 2019 finally.

Election Commission curtailed West Bengal campaigning by one day, after a bust of 19th century Bengali icon Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was vandalised during 7th phase poll violence.[88]

• 12 January 2019 – Prime Minister Modi launched the BJP's election campaign.[89]
• 14 February 2019 – The INC president Rahul Gandhi launched his campaign from Lal Dungri village in Gujarat's Dharampur.[90]
• 24 March 2019 – The Aam Aadmi Party began its campaign in Delhi.[91][92]
• 2 April 2019 – The Trinamool Congress party launched its campaign from Dinhata, Coochbehar.[93]
• 7 April 2019 – Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party began campaigning together as an alliance (Mahagathbandhan) along with regional parties such as the Rashtriya Lok Dal.[94] Their first joint campaign started in Deoband in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh.[95][96]

The Congress released its manifesto, titled Congress Will Deliver on 3 April.[97][98] Some of its highlights:[97][99][100]

• Introduce a Nyuntam Aay Yojana welfare program wherein ₹72,000 (US$1,000) per year will be transferred directly to the bank account of a woman-member in each family in the poorest 20 percent households.
• Create 1 million "Seva Mitra" jobs in rural and urban local government bodies. Fill all 400,000 central government vacancies before March 2020, and encourage state governments to fill their 2,000,000 vacancies. Enact a law that requires all non-government controlled employers with over 100 employees to implement an apprentice program.
• Enact a permanent National Commission on Agricultural Development and Planning and introduce a "Kisan Budget" (Farmer Budget) in the parliament every year. Waive all farmer loans in all states with any amounts outstanding.
• Enact a Right to Homestead Act that will provide free land to every household that does not own a home.
• Enact a Right to Healthcare Act and guarantee every citizen free diagnostics, free medicines, free hospitalisation, and free out-patient care. Double spending on healthcare to 3 percent of its GDP by 2024.
• Double spending on education to 6 percent of its GDP by 2024.
• Revise the national GST law from three tax tiers to a single moderate rate of tax. Reduce taxes on exported products to zero. Exempt from the GST essential goods and services that are currently not exempt. Enact a new Direct Taxes Code.
• Augment and rapid construction of national highways. Modernise Indian railway infrastructure. Promote green energy. Manufacturing promotion.
• Increase defence spending.
• Enact a National Election Fund, wherein public funds will be distributed to recognised political parties to run their campaign
• Preserve special status and special rights to natives of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 and 35A.[100]
• Amend the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958. End the Sedition law (Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code).

The BJP released its manifesto sub-titled Sankalpit Bharat, Sashakt Bharat (lit. "Resolute India, Empowered India") on 8 April.[101][102] Some of its highlights:[100][102][103]

• Double farmer incomes by 2022 by completing all major and micro-irrigation infrastructure projects, opening adequate markets and modern farm produce storage centres, implement minimum price supports for farmer produce, farmer loans and all-weather rural roads. Introduce a pension bill for small and marginal farmers to provide social security after 60 years of age.
• Bring all secondary schools under the national board quality purview. Invest ₹100,000 crore (US$14 billion) in higher education, open new and increase seats at existing engineering, management and law schools. Establish skills and innovations centre at block-level in every town. Enhance higher education opportunities for women by introducing financial support and subsidies programs. Source 10 percent of government procurement from companies with more than 50 percent female employees.
• Ensure a pucca (lit. brick-solid, modern) house, safe potable water, toilet, LPG gas cylinder, electricity, and banking account for every family. Reduce the percentage of families living under the poverty line to a single digit by 2024.
• Double the length of national highways. Improve fuel quality by mandating 10 percent ethanol in petrol. Scale renewable energy capacity to 175 GW.
• Electrify and convert to broad gauge all railway tracks.
• Establish 150,000 health and wellness centres. Start 75 new medical colleges. Raise doctor-to-population ratio to 1:1400. Triple childcare facilities. Achieve 100 percent immunisation of all babies.
• Raise India's ranking further in "ease of doing business". Double exports, introduce single-window compliance procedures for all businesses.
• Reduce air pollution by eliminating all crop residue burning.
• Digitise paperwork and proceedings, modernise the courts.
• Launch and promote a National Digital Library with e-books and leading journals to provide free knowledge accessible to all students. Launch a "Study in India" program to bring foreign students to institutes of higher education.
• Zero tolerance for terrorism, fund resources to strengthen national security, guarantee veterans, and soldier welfare, modernise police forces.
• End special status and special rights to natives of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 and 35A.[100]

Other national and regional parties have released their manifestos too:

• The Tamil Nadu-based regional parties AIADMK and DMK released their manifesto on 18 March 2019, with each promising to release the seven Tamils jailed after being found guilty for their role in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, a former Congress party leader and prime minister of India. The AIADMK promised to press for the political rights of the Tamil people in the Eelam region of Sri Lanka, while the DMK has promised Indian citizenship to all Sri Lankan expats. According to the Deccan Herald, the AIADMK has promised a cash transfer of ₹18,000 (US$250) per year to "all families below the poverty level, destitute women, widows without income, differently-abled, landless agricultural labourers, rural and urban manual labourers and destitute senior citizens". The AIADMK also promised to raise the tax exemption limit and revisions to the GST law. The DMK promised a probe into Rafale fighter jet deal, and a plan to distribute free sanitary napkins to working women along with starting martial arts schools for girls.[104]
• Biju Janata Dal (BJD) released its manifesto on 9 April 2019. It promised a ₹100,000 (US$1,400) zero-interest crop loan to farmers every year, a ₹500,000 (US$7,000) zero-interest loan to women-run self-help groups, 75 percent jobs reservation in Odisha-based companies to Odisha youth, free education to all girls and a marriage assistance grant of ₹25,000 (US$350) to daughters of poor families. It also promised to complete two expressways.[105]
• Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM) manifesto promised to raise the minimum wage to ₹216,000 (US$3,000) per year, an old age pension of ₹72,000 (US$1,000) per year and universal public distribution of 35 kilograms of foodgrains per family. It also stated the restoration of inheritance tax and an increase in the taxes on individuals and corporations.[106] It also promised spending 6 per cent of GDP on education, enacting a Right to Free Health Care with 3.5 per cent of GDP on health in the short term and 5 per cent in the long term, introduction of price controls on essential drugs, breaking monopoly of drug multinationals, as well as enact a Right to Guaranteed Employment in urban areas.[107]
• Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) promised to open talks with Pakistan on terrorism. It also promised to expand trade and political relationship with Russia, and seek to weaken Russia's ties with China and Pakistan.[108]
• Samajwadi Party promised an annual pension of ₹36,000 (US$500) to poor families in a form of a cash transfer to women. It has also proposed a new property tax of 2 percent on homes valued above ₹25,000,000 (US$350,000) as well as raising income taxes on the affluent. It also promised to create 100,000 new jobs every year.[109]
• Telugu Desam Party released its manifesto on 5 April 2019. It promised zero-interest loans to farmer without any caps, a grant of ₹15,000 (US$210) per year to each farmer as investment support, a grant of ₹100,000 (US$1,400) to each family with a daughter in the year of her marriage, an unemployment allowance of ₹3,000 (US$42) for any youth who has completed intermediate education, and free laptops to all students at the intermediate level.[110]
• AITMC's manifesto was released on 27 March 2019. It promised a judicial probe into demonetisation, a review of GST law, and sought to bring back the Planning Commission. It also promised free medical care, expanding the "100-day work scheme" currently operating in India to "200-day work scheme" along with a pay increase.[111]
• Aam Aadmi Party released its manifesto on 25 April 2019 promising full statehood for Delhi to give the Delhi government control over police and other institutions.[112] The manifesto promised 85 per cent reservations in the Delhi-based colleges and jobs for the voters of Delhi and their families.[113][114]

Several organisations have offered varying estimates for the cost of election campaign. The Centre for Media Studies in New Delhi estimates the election campaign could exceed $7 billion.[115] According to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an election watchdog, in the financial year 2017–18 BJP received ₹4,370,000,000 (US$61 million), about 12 times more donations than Congress and five other national parties combined.[115]

The electoral bonds in denominations ranging from 1,000 rupees to 10 million rupees ($14 to $140,000) can be purchased and donated to a political party. The bonds don't carry the name of the donor and are exempt from tax.[116][116][note 6] Factly – an India data journalism portal, traced the electoral bond donations for 2018 under India's Right to Information Act. According to Factly, electoral bonds worth about ₹10,600,000,000 (US$150 million) were purchased and donated in 2018. According to Bloomberg, this accounted for 31.2 percent of political donations in 2018, while 51.4 percent of the total donated amount were each below ₹20,000 (US$280) and these too were from unknown donors. About 47 percent of the donations to political parties were from known sources.[116] Between 1 January and 31 March 2019, donors bought ₹17,100,000,000 (US$240 million) worth of electoral bonds and donated.[120] The spending in elections boosts national GDP, and the 2009 election spending contributed about 0.5 percent to GDP.[121]

According to Centre for Media Studies, the BJP spent over Rs 28,000 crore (or 45 per cent) of the Rs 60,000 crore spent by all political parties during the polls.[122] Congress questions BJP over its poll expenditure [123]

With the exception of 2014, no single party has won the majority of seats in the Lok Sabha since 1984, and therefore, forming alliances is the norm in Indian elections.

There were five main national pre-poll alliances. They are the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) headed by the BJP, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) headed by the INC, Mahagathbandhan (or Grand Alliance), or MGB, Federal Front headed by All India Trinamool Congress, and the left front of Communist-leaning parties. Given the volatile nature of coalition politics in India, alliances may change during and after the election.

The INC has not formed an alliance in states where it is in direct contest with the BJP. These states include Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. It has formed alliances with regional parties in Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Jharkhand, and Kerala.[124]

In January 2019, Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party announced a grand alliance (Mahagathbandhan) to contest 76 out of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh leaving two seats, namely Amethi and Rae Bareli, for INC and another two for other political parties.[125]

More than 650 parties contested in these elections. Most of them were small with regional appeal. The main parties are the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress (INC).It was the first time when BJP (437) contested more seats than Congress (421) in the Lok Sabha elections.[126][127]

Altogether 8,039 candidates are in the fray for 542 parliamentary constituencies, i.e., 14.8 candidates per constituency on an average, according to PRS India, an NGO.[128]

About 40% of the candidates fielded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party have a criminal case against them. Key opposition party Congress is not far behind with 39% of the candidates with criminal charges, according to Association of Democratic Reforms analysis.[129]