Four politicians to watch in Indian elections Modi is seen to win

NEW DELHI — As India gets ready for a multi-phase national vote kicking off on Friday, all eyes are on the fate of top politicians who are hoping to play a key role after the elections in the South Asian nation of nearly 970 million registered voters.

The voting in the seven-phase general election in the world’s most populous country ends on June 1, while counting takes place on June 4. The last two general elections, in 2019 and 2014, achieved record-breaking voter turnout of 67.4% and 66.4%, respectively.

Opinion polls predict that the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), will take a third straight victory. A party or coalition needs 272 of the 543 seats being contested for the lower house of parliament, called the Lok Sabha, to form the government. In 2019, the BJP bagged 303 seats alone, helping the NDA tally to cross 350, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set an even more ambitious goal of “above 400” for the NDA this time.

That comes as the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), a coalition of about two dozen opposition parties including the Congress party, has been struggling to mount a stiff challenge.

Here are brief profiles of four political heavyweights.

Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi addresses his supporters in a meeting during his 66-day nationwide march in 2024.

The 53-year-old Congress leader is the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family dynasty. His great grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru, grandmother and Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi, and father Rajiv Gandhi were all prime ministers. The party ruled the country for most of the decades after independence from British rule in 1947, but now only holds 46 seats in the Lok Sabha.

He was elected Congress president unopposed in December 2017, but stepped down to take responsibility for the 2019 election loss. However, he remains a key figure even though critics have cast doubt over his leadership abilities.

Earlier this year, Gandhi undertook a two-month, 6,700-kilometer nationwide march seeking “economic, social and political justice” for people as a last-ditch effort to revive the flagging fortunes of the once-dominant party. This was his second cross-country trek after making a similar 3,500-km journey about a year ago.

He continues to accuse the Modi government of failing to create enough jobs and favoring billionaires. “In an environment where Mr. Narendra Modi has forced every single Indian youngster to be unemployed, we are going to take drastic action for [generating] employment,” Gandhi said at a public meeting in the southern state of Tamil Nadu on April 12, promising to fill 3 million government vacancies if he gains power.

Mamata Banerjee

Trinamool Congress party leader and Chief Minister of West Bengal state Mamata Banerjee speaks at a rally in Kolkata on March 10.   © AP

The 69-year-old chief minister of West Bengal state and leader of the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) party, which she founded in 1998 after splitting from the Congress, is the only female leader of a state in India. The party holds the fifth largest number of seats in the Lok Sabha, with 22.

The fiery opposition leader, who is the key figure in the INDIA bloc, has refused to accept any seat-sharing arrangement with Congress in her state, which accounts for 42 Lok Sabha seats and where she has fielded TMC candidates in all constituencies.

She is also fiercely opposed to a new citizenship law brought in by the Modi government that has been criticized as being biased against Muslims.

“I want communal harmony,” she said at an event marking the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr on April 11, maintaining that she would not accept the citizenship law in her state.

M.K. Stalin

M.K Stalin, center, attends a meeting of the INDIA alliance in New Delhi along in December 2023.   © AP

The 71-year-old head of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party — which has 23 seats in the Lok Sabha and is part of the opposition INDIA bloc — is the chief minister of Tamil Nadu. Modi’s BJP failed to secure even one of the 39 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the 2019 general election.

Son of veteran DMK leader and five-time former chief minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi, Stalin was named after controversial Soviet leader Joseph Stalin who died four days after the Indian’s birth.

Despite predictions of a thumping BJP win in the general elections, Stalin said on April 13 that the opposition alliance would deliver a “sweet victory” to Rahul Gandhi, a day after the Congress leader gifted him special south Indian sweets.

Like his father, who was at the forefront of anti-Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu where Tamil is spoken, Stalin is against any push for his state to accept the language mostly used in north and central India. Hindi is the most spoken language in the country.

Nitish Kumar

The chief minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, gestures during an INDIA alliance news conference in Mumbai in September 2023. (Sipa via AP Images)

The 73-year-old chief minister of Bihar state and leader of the Janata Dal (United) party is often referred to as a “turncoat” politician for frequently changing his allies. In late January, Kumar, who was an instrumental figure in forming the INDIA bloc, rejoined the BJP-led NDA which he had left in August 2022. The constituency of Bihar has 40 seats and his party holds 16 — the seventh largest total in the Lok Sabha.

His exit dealt a blow to the INDIA bloc, within which he was unhappy due to slow progress on seat-sharing arrangements for general elections as well as with Congress dawdling on allowing him to take up a leadership role in the opposition alliance.

“I was working so hard and helped form the [INDIA] alliance but other [partners] were not doing anything [for things to move forward]. I was hurt because of that … and left the alliance,” he said after breaking away from the opposition bloc.

Kumar rejoining the NDA could affect the INDIA alliance’s prospects in Bihar, a politically crucial state.

source : asia.nikkei