Read the full article here: https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/india-elections
Follow Gulf News' for special coverage and analysis of the Indian Elections 2019.
India's general elections are complete and the results will be announced tomorrow. We take a look at the country's history, political framework, and the issues that may have played a role in deciding who will form the next government.
#Indian Elections #Modi #Congress
Follow Gulf News' for special coverage and analysis of the Indian Elections 2019.
India's general elections are complete and the results will be announced tomorrow. We take a look at the country's history, political framework, and the issues that may have played a role in deciding who will form the next government.
#Indian Elections #Modi #Congress
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NewsTranscript
00:00Tomorrow, the votes will be counted and the world will know whom India has voted to power.
00:17Why do India elections matter?
00:19With a population of 1.3 billion, India is the world's largest democracy.
00:27It is the country with the maximum representation of faiths.
00:32In this election, communal politics has been at the forefront.
00:37Why does communalism matter in India?
00:40India is a 5,000-year-old country that was invaded repeatedly.
00:45Even though it has absorbed various faiths over the years, there has always been a level
00:50of friction.
00:51This was further exploited by the British to control the nation with their divide and
00:56rule policy.
00:59Back to 2019, how is India's government structured?
01:06The Indian parliament has 790 seats divided into two houses.
01:11The upper house or the Rajya Sabha, which has non-elected members.
01:16The lower house or the Lok Sabha, which has elected members.
01:23An autonomous constitutional authority called the Election Commission of India is responsible
01:28for administering election processes in India.
01:34This year, 900 million eligible voters went to 1 million polling stations.
01:41These polling stations have electronic voting machines or EVMs, electronic devices used
01:48for recording votes.
01:503.96 million EVMs were used during this year's election.
01:57The voters elect representatives to 543 seats or constituencies of the Lok Sabha.
02:04A party needs 272 or more seats to win.
02:11India's 29 states and 7 union territories are divided into constituencies.
02:17Different states have different numbers of constituencies depending on the population
02:22of the state.
02:26States are administrative units that have their own governments.
02:30On the contrary, union territories are directly ruled by the central government through a
02:35lieutenant governor as the administrator.
02:38Appointed by the central government, he is a representative of the President of India.
02:44The winning candidate from each constituency becomes a Member of Parliament or an MP.
02:50The winning party selects the Prime Minister, who then chooses his cabinet of ministers
02:56from the elected MPs with over 40 portfolios like Home Affairs, External Affairs, Defence
03:02and Finance.
03:05General elections in India take place every five years.
03:09But India is a difficult country to rule.
03:13It has many faiths which are further divided into sects and sub-sects.
03:21The country also has 121 languages with more than 19,500 dialects.
03:28Also, the vast majority of Indian population is still rural.
03:35Despite these challenges, India is the sixth largest economy in the world.
03:42The current ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party or the BJP, swept the elections in 2014.
03:50In the past five years, there has been a sharp increase in divisive politics and economic
03:56challenges posed by the demonetisation decision and the introduction of GST, a standard goods
04:03and services tax.
04:06India also recorded its highest rate of unemployment in 45 years in 2017-18.
04:14The main opposition party is the Indian National Congress.
04:18However, the Congress has lost numbers and is now forming coalitions with different parties
04:24in different states.
04:28In the 2019 elections, the voter turnout was higher than the 2014 polls, with 55-56 million
04:37new voters.
04:40India in fact has a large population of voters under 35, so the 2019 mandate might get decided
04:47by the voice of the youth.
04:50But what are the possible results in this election?
04:59The National Democratic Alliance, the BJP and its allies could get a clear majority.
05:06Or the UPA, Congress and its allies could get a clear majority.
05:12The third possible result is a hung parliament.
05:17The Indian parliament has 543 seats, which means in order to form a government, any party
05:22or bloc will have to win at least 272 seats.
05:26Now in the event when no party or bloc is in a position to win 272, if they finish below
05:31that mark, it's a hung parliament.
05:33And then it's the President's prerogative to decide on which party or bloc he will invite
05:37to form a government.
05:43For me, I'll support Modi, Mr. Narendra Modi.
05:49I feel he's a genuine person and maybe at one point in time he'll do some good for India.
05:57And he's really making sense as of now, for the last five years which he has worked over
06:01there.
06:02Last five years, the government has done exceptionally well.
06:05In 20 years, if we see at least, these five years were certainly exceptional and they
06:10have done something which can be seen by common people.
06:19If we at least compare these 15 years, so five years is better than ten years prior
06:26to this five years.
06:27Whosoever is coming, whosoever is coming in power, whether it's a Modi or it's a coalition
06:32government or it's a Raoul government, anybody, but our expectation from the government is
06:38that they can do the economic revival of the country.
06:42Currently, due to what happened in the past, GST was one of the major concerns.
06:48The demonetisation was one of the concerns.
06:51Even you can see the GDP rates.
06:53We don't know, nobody relies on these GDP rates, whether it is high or low.
06:58We understand from the different sources that it is the first.
07:01So the government is showing it is high, but it might be it is not high because the other
07:05sources are not showing.
07:06So our expectation from the government is on the economic revival.
07:09They should work on the inflation rate.
07:12They should work on the jobs.
07:13Currently, our young populations are looking for the job.
07:16They are graduates.
07:17Again, the expectations from whoever comes to is a very clean governance we require because
07:22if you see the past of Indian politics, it has been like blotted with a lot of scams
07:27happening all across.
07:28Pretty national security, diplomatic things, obviously, they have been doing a good job
07:32in the past.
07:33I assume that the coming government, whoever comes in, will take on the same thing, I hope.