Let’s Talk Politics

Tomorrow, Indians will go to the polls and choose a new House of the People. The body represents the lower house of the Indian Parliament. In light of the current term’s June 1 expiration date, the Indian government called for new elections on March 2. The elections were to start on April 16 and last four weeks.

The size of India’s current voting population is around 714 million. 49 million Indians will be voting for the first time this election.

The House of the People is a body comprised of 545 members, 543 of which are directly elected. The remaining two are appointed to represent the Anglo-Indian population. Those that are elected serve five-year terms. The Indian upper house, the House of the States, is comprised of 233 officials elected by the state governments and 12 appointees. Those who are elected serve six-year terms and the system is designed so that 1/3 of the body is elected at a time. The last election for the House of the States was in 2008.

The key issue in the election is the state of the Indian economy, which has contracted since last year. GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2008 amounted to 5.3 percent, down from 9.0 percent a year earlier. In that same quarter, 500,000 people lost their jobs.

The current party in power is the Indian National Congress (INC). The INC’s main political opponent is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who has accused Prime Minister and INC member Manmohan Singh of economic mismanagement. Despite the dominance of India’s two major parties, pundits agree that the election outcome will depend on a score of small third parties based on their alliance with either the INC or the BJP.

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