India Elections .. Learn all the details

Zafar al-Islam Khan *

India's general election began on Thursday to elect the country's 17th parliament since its independence in 1947. The elections will take place in seven phases over six weeks, ending on May 19.

The elections are attended by 900 million voters registered with the Electoral Commission, including 15 million young voters participating in the electoral process for the first time in their lives.

543 deputies will be elected by direct vote, while the Indian president will later nominate two English-speaking Indians (Anglo-Indians).

Every 18-year-old or more may participate in the elections provided that he holds a card issued by the Electoral Commission, but prevents him from running or voting in some serious crimes.

The counting of votes will begin on the morning of May 23. The results will be announced successively later that day. The use of e-voting devices helps in the announcement of the results, but some parties object to these devices, saying they are easily manipulated to rig elections.

The elections are being held mainly between the Hindu-India People's Party, the ruling party since May 2014, and the Indian Congress Party with liberal and secular views.

But there are hundreds of other parties in the field, some of them strong parties, but their influence is limited to certain states and has limited regional programs or some strong families.

Regional Parties
The phenomenon of regional parties controlling a particular state has become a constant phenomenon in Indian political life for nearly three decades. Many of them have emerged from the belly of the Congress Party or because of it because the Congress Party, which ruled India uninterruptedly after independence for nearly four decades, neglected many states and regions and ignored Its local leaders.

This neglect has made these leaders separate from the party and become regional parties that have become strong over time and can not be ignored. They govern a number of Indian states and are allied with the Congress Party or the Indian People's Party in the central government and their deputies get seats in the central ministry.

The Indian People's Party (PPP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Mudi, came to power in 2014 with attractive promises of development, industrialization, economic advancement, job creation and bringing Indian black money deposited in foreign banks to the Indians.

But the government of Moody has failed miserably in the economy, increasing poverty, curbing trade and shutting down small factories by the thousands because of its policies for big capitalists, especially because of two random decisions: the cancellation of high-class notes (Rs. 500 and Rs.) On November 8, 2016 Under the pretext of the elimination of black funds (ie funds for which taxes were not paid).

The economy was confused
The Indian economy has been in turmoil for months, and its effects remain. Today, the government's decision to impose a unified central tax (GST) across India has further confused the economy and restricted small traders, small factory owners and craftsmen.

India has not yet emerged from this artificial crisis brought by Moody's regime because of his dictatorial tendencies and his lack of faith in consulting experts and representatives of the people before making fateful decisions.

Even agriculture, which is the mainstay of rural India, is in a bad state. Farmers have been forced to go out in large demonstrations. Thousands have not seen suicide in the last few years or moved to cities where there are no jobs.

In this context, the PPP this time focuses on the slogans and promises of the sensitive Hindu voters such as the promise to build the Hindu temple over the land of the Babri mosque and the intensity of dealing with Pakistan (Islamic), and the fight against "terrorism," especially in Kashmir (Muslim majority), and granting asylum to minorities Oppressed in neighboring countries and excluded from this right Muslims.

For this purpose, the Indian People's Party used the bombing in the town of Pulwama, Kashmir, on February 14, which killed 40 Indian soldiers, focused on the attack on Pakistan and "supporters of Pakistan" in India, and ordered the use of Indian warplanes to hit sites in Pakistani Kashmir The end of February, for the first time since the Indo-Pakistan war in 1971.

To show their courage
Prime Minister Moody and his party leaders continue to focus on the attack on a daily basis to show their courage and firm stand in front of Pakistan. During these attacks, Moody and his party leaders do not hesitate to cite the metaphor and metaphor that Muslims and leaders of opposition parties are the enemies of India and Pakistan's friends.

On March 27 India destroyed an artificial satellite in space, and immediately began to use this experiment to confirm that India's fate was safe only in the hands of Moody and his party. Moody and his party leaders are keen to show that they stand with the army and the security forces and fight terrorism, and that India will face destruction and surrender to Pakistan if the Indian Congress Party won the election.

The department also includes violent violence in Kashmir by the army and the security forces. Vmodi since taking office in May 2014 has given the green light to the security forces in Kashmir using the maximum violence to eliminate armed rebellion and political opposition.

Finally, the Indian People's Party exceeded all the previous limits when it announced in its publication that if he returned to power, two articles of the Indian constitution would give Indian Kashmir a kind of autonomy.

The leaders of the Kashmiri parties loyal to India responded by saying that the abolition of these two articles would be an end to the accession of Kashmir to India and Kashmir would become independent after that, because Kashmir's accession to India in 1948 was under certain conditions and those articles are safeguarding those conditions.

The Congress Party, led by Rahul Gandhi, the son of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, focuses on the failure of Moody's policies and its destruction of the economy, institutions and corruption rampant under the current government.

The Congress party is reviving the economy and has promised to pay 72,000 rupees (about 1,000 dollars) a year to India's poorest population, which accounts for 20 percent of the population. Campaigning in general is not about issues, but rather about the attack on Modi or Rahul.

Opportunities are close
However, referendums show that neither party will win the clear victory that can form the next government on its own, depending on its majority in parliament. The two parties will try to win over regional and small parties and form a government coalition.

Money plays a big role in this process as well as in elections that have become so expensive that ordinary Indians do not think about running for election. At present, the PPP is India's richest party because big companies such as Reliance and Adani are standing.

A recent report by the US Congressional Research Service said that the return of the Indian People's Party would mean consolidating India's one-party system with all the restraint of secularism and liberalism that have been hallmarks of India's main policy since independence and the emergence of the Indian People's Party in the mid- On the political scene with his campaign against the Babri Mosque, which ended with his demolition in December 1992 and the construction of a temporary temple in his place.

The party is still playing the cause of the temple, calling for the construction of a magnificent Hindu temple on the land of the Babri Mosque, which is a pride of Hindus in India and the world.

A major indicator of Indian political life today is the exclusion and marginalization of Muslims (about 15% of the population) to the extent that secular parties such as the Congress Party no longer care for them out of fear of indignation.

The names of millions of Muslims in India have also been removed from the electoral register under pretext or otherwise so that Muslims will not have a role in the political process, which is considered an important element of the elections.

In this context, the Government of Moody is constantly intervening in Islamic personal laws and enacting new laws without consulting Muslim institutions, their leaders and their scholars, under the pretext of lifting the injustice of Muslim women.

Other key indicators include the dominance of Mody and his party over the Indian media almost completely control the use of bribes and the exploitation of state institutions and government ads, and the media is used openly to publicize Mody and his party in these elections.

It is also a major indicator that foreign policy issues are completely absent in these party-party elections, with the exception of the moderate attacks by Moody and his party's leaders on Pakistan and Pakistan's supporters in India, which the extremist Hindu voter receives as an attack on Muslims and Islam.

Whatever the results, the coming years will be difficult for India because Hinduism is entering all areas of public political life, including universities, and even acceptance of secular parties eager to win the votes of Muslims.

* Writer and political analyst based in New Delhi