Article 83, Clause 2, of the Constitution of India mandates that a general election be held every five years, except in extenuating circumstances. No such circumstances being evident at the present time, the latest that an election can be held is in April of this year, although the process itself may extend into May. In 2014, an FDI paper predicted that there would be a change of government; it predicted that the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), headed by the Congress Party under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, would be overthrown by a resurgent National Democratic Alliance (NDA), headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, the Indian Peoples Party) under the leadership of Narendra Modi, then-Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat. In the event, the BJP won an overwhelming victory, so large, in fact, that it has dominated Parliament since. With the NDA coalition, there was little doubt as to Prime Minister Modi’s popularity.

Five years later, the world’s largest democracy heads back to the polls. Voting will begin on 11 April and will be conducted in seven phases. This is no run-of-the-mill undertaking. A mammoth 875 million people are eligible to vote in this year’s election. In 2014, 830 million people were eligible to vote and around 550 million chose to do so. They will vote to elect 543 representatives to the Lower House (the Lok Sabha); two more seats are reserved for representatives from the Anglo-Indian community. Those two reserved seats aside, each of the others represents a geographic area. The winner of the election is the first to gain a simple majority. Voters will be required to choose from 8,251 candidates nominated by 464 political parties at over 900,000 polling booths that will be staffed by ten million personnel. India’s general elections are, in short, a massive logistical exercise. It is easy to understand why, therefore, the election process is conducted in stages.

Key points:

• The Modi Administration has had mixed results in terms of fulfilling the Prime Minister’s 2014 election campaign promises.
• It has fulfilled several economic promises but others, such as job creation, remain unfulfilled.
• The Congress Party, on the other hand, has neither demonstrated any policy of substance nor produced a leader with the charisma of Mr Modi.
• It is more than likely, therefore, that the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), headed by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, will be returned to office, albeit with a changed membership and a reduced majority.